Cultural Identity In The Era Nightmare

Cultural identity has been an important field since the birth of May Fourth New Literature, and also an uninterrupted clue through the history of Chinese literature. The illustration of cultural identity is the fusion of the writer's individual experience and the structure of social mind in which cultural identity was lost at that time. It also bears the writer's exploration and pursuit of the construction of ethnic cultures and ideal way of human life. Taking the cultural identity of the 1930s and 40s as the research subject, this thesis combs the development of Chinese cultural identity from the late Qing Dynasty to the Shanghai besieged period in the forties. It centers on the peculiar geographic location of Shanghai, and chooses some types of people with different cultural background as the case study. Combined with the writer's own life experience and background of his times, and from the angle of the text, the thesis makes an all-round and multi-dimensional investigation of the unconscious loss of cultural identity of the whole society. Then it aims to draw the conclusion that modern Chinese history is a history of cultural identity of Chinese nation.This should be discussed in the following key elements:Chapter One states the major research subject of this thesis through defining and differentiating "cultural identity", provides an overview of the background of cultural identity during the 1930s and 40s in Shanghai, and illustrates the writer's motives for writing cultural identity crisis. Starting from the specific context, Chapter Two elaborates the identity crisis under the clash between traditional Chinese culture and colonial culture from different levels and dimensions. Chapter Three makes a comparison of the writer's attitudes towards colonial culture, traditional culture and May 4th new culture. From the comparison, it demonstrates the writer's final choice of cultural identity in the clash of multiple cultures, which serves to establish the ideal cultural identity. Chapter Four expounds the construction process and result of writer's ideal cultural identity. Finally, the conclusion part extends and forecasts the issue of the cultural identity.