Research On The Novels With Migrant Workers Theme Since The1990s

Since the1990s, the theme on migrant workers becomes a hotspot in Chinese contemporary fictions. The situation of the survival of migrant workers is a reflection of the historical evolution of rural China in the period of modernization transition, and the research on the modernity of contemporary literature should begin with peasants entering the city. The novels with migrant workers theme show the survival experience of Chinese migrant workers involved in the whirlpool of modernity in this transition period, referring to the most pressing proposition of modernity in this era.We can interpret the complex topics of the novels with migrant workers theme by two pairs of relations, one between peasants and land, the other between peasants and city. The relationship between peasants and land can be combed from these three aspects, the peasants’ temperament influenced by soil, the change of peasants’consciousness about land, the stretching of peasants’land complex, etc. The relationship between peasants and city can be analyzed from these three aspects, the peasants’city complex, the confrontation between peasants and city, the fusion of peasants and city, etc. The land complex and the city complex are interweaved and coexisted on migrant workers, and they bear the conflict and integration between tradition and modernity, city and country. The novels with migrant workers theme record the culture throes of rural China transforming into modern China in the pursuit of modernity. In the migrant workers’ pursuit of modernity, we can see the strong attractiveness of modern urban culture and the inevitable fission of the traditional local culture.Due to the complexity of the subjects of these novels and the diversity of writers’positions and culture backgrounds, the novels with migrant workers theme show a diversity of writing. Judging from the aesthetic style, they can be divided into several types, such as social criticism, urban legend, land nostalgia, etc. The novels of social criticism are represented by Loach of You Fengwei and Anger of Bei Cun. These two novels display the grim side of modernity and perform the writers’suspicion towards the consequences of modernization, with a distinctive color of critical realism. The novels of urban legend are represented by Jia Pingwa’s Gao Xing and Liu Zhenyun’s My name is Liu Yuejin. With modern culture value as the basic stance of narrative, although there are cracks of discourse more or less, these two novels show the consensus towards modernity discourse. The novels of land nostalgia are concerned about the paradox of modernization development-development means that the loss of traditional beauty. Sun Huifen’s Ji Kuan’s carriage and Zhao Benfu’s The era without soil, explore the possibility of the integration of the superiority of city culture and country culture, the fusion of traditional life and modern life and rebuilding poetic homeland in the development of modernization, reflecting the writers’deep thinking about the ideal culture patterns under the background of modernization.With multi-layer values such as catering to modernity, criticism of modernity, and hesitation about modernity in the diversified forms of the novels with migrant workers theme, these novels have a wealth of modern implications, and a tension of modernity is formed consequently. The tension of these novels is associated with China’s social modernity in the transition period, writers’thoughts of modernity, also the complexity of modernity itself. It is no doubt that a variety of modernity pursuits provide with a value system for roads of China’s modernization and a space of deeply thinking for modernity issues.