Analysis On The Moonlight Imagery In Chi Zijian’s Novels

Chi Zijian, a nature’s daughter from the northern frontier, broke into the literary world with the fairy tales and dreams of Arctic Village. She has become a distinctive and influential writer in the contemporary Chinese literary world. The use of the image is the bright spot of Chi Zijian’s narrative art. Among these images, the moonlight image which has been accompanied by her novel creation in the last30years and always glows with its unique smooth, soft connotation and artistic appeal has become one of the most abundant aesthetic implication in the image group of her novels and an important window of looking into Chi Zijian’s art world and spiritual world. This thesis focuses on analyzing the development of the moonlight image and the rheological reasons for the change in its implication and connotation in Chi Zijian’s novels. Meanwhile, this thesis aims to explore the moonlight image’s special significance for Chi Zijian’s art world and to find out its regularity characteristics.The first chapter is mainly about the moonlight image in Chi Zijian’s early novels. The moonlight image in this phase has a strong fairy-tale color and shows a childlike perception of yesterday catastrophe, which is reflected in three aspects. Firstly, the writer starts childhood writing about the catastrophe pain by depicting the pure and gentle moonlight. The moonlight image indicates the sensitive and tense interpersonal relationships in a specific historical period and the sinister brutal social circumstances. Besides, it implies a warm reflection of the children’s distorted and oppressive soul. Secondly, the writer creates an ancient moonlight fairy tale to express a childlike perception of the impermanence of life and the pure call of vitality. Thirdly, by describing the aesthetic poetic moonlight images, the writer weaves beautiful love fairy tales to express the beauty and fragility of love, the illusion and frailness after falling in love and some poetic sadness of love.The second chapter analyzes the moonlight image in Chi Zijian’s novels from the late1980s and early1990s to the new century. During this period, the fairy-tale color of the moonlight image gradually dilutes and its spiritual connotation develops to deeper rationality. It highlights the writer’s homeland and warmth awareness of humane care. First of all, moonlight is the portrayal of her father’s soul and life, who is a hard laborer in the spirit. And it carries the writer’s affectionate memories to her father. Moreover, the writer’s moonlight complex and her native soil complex are blended together, which is permeated with the conscious awareness of humane care. Next, the moonlight image demonstrates the essential states of life and the troubles of real life. At the same time, it reflects the bitterness of the women’s love and marriage and witnesses the tragic fate of people in the bottom of society. All these reflect the writer’s profound humane care and realistic attitude. Finally, the moonlight image conveys the writer’s artistic pursuit of transcendence of the secular life and purification of the soul. What’s more, the warmth of the moonlight is a powerful force to digest hatred and return to goodness. It shows the beauty and pureness of human nature during the dialogue and exchange of man and nature.The third chapter discusses the moonlight image of Chi Zijian’s novels in the new century. At this time, the connotation of moonlight image has changed; the writer’s vision has been broader and she is more conscious about the reality; and her writing style has turned to be coldness rather than fairy-tale colors and soft warmth. The moonlight image is analyzed from three perspectives in this part. Firstly, the moonlight image holds the writer’s profound sentiments towards the vicissitudes of history, such as the sorrow and desolation to the Manchukuo’s war history, the pain and hope for the Ewenki’s one-hundred-year history, the mysterious atmosphere and spiritual changes of Harbin. Secondly, the moonlight image represents a new spiritual dimension of the writer and her rational perspective on the focus of the society, including the revelation to life tragedies and destiny, the narration of sufferings and the sincere feelings in the bitterness of love. Thirdly, the moonlight image highlights the writer’s reflection on the modern civilization, like the reverence to the original natural vitality, the rational criticism on modern civilization, the elegy to the civilization of the weak nations, the profound reflection on the process of human civilization, the appreciation for the grassland spirit of honesty and gratitude and the questioning to the modern civilization.