Under The View Of Overall Theory Study Of Wang's Literary Creations

Among the large group of contemporary writers, Wang Anyi is a representative prolificwriter. She begins to write novels since 1980s and almost every literary trend has herexcellent work. There is a lot of research and comment of Wang, but most of the research andcomment is confined to a specific text (such as Age of Enlightenment, Song of EverlastingRegret ), a certain series (“Wenwen series”,“Three Love”), a particular feature (feministconsciousness), or geographical features (“descendant of Shanghai school”). Most of themaster’s and doctor’s theses, which take Wang as the object of study, are about her creationtheory, stylistics, idealism, and narrative structure, however, there is no thesis using totalitytheory as the title. This thesis will use Lukacs’totality theory to review Wang’s creation.The first part of the thesis is about Wang’s concept of creation from the perspective oftotality theory. Totality is the core concept of History and Class Consciousness, written byLukacs in 1923. This concept is related to philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, and itemphasizes the decisive dominance of the whole to part. It is actually a dialectical thinking tounderstand parts by regarding a society as a whole. In Lukacs’opinion, the existence andnature, the cause and effect of literature can only be understood and explained by putting itinto the whole social and historical relations, just as Lukacs discusses the realism novel ofBalzac and Tolstoy: in the novel, every detail is interrelated, and contains a holographicliterary sense, so this is the real“reproduction”of the totality of literature. Wang Anyi formedher own mature and stable creation theory in more than 30 years writing. By studying hercreation theory, we found that Wang’s view of novel creation is similar to Lukacs totalitytheory in many ways. Firstly, the relationship between individual and history should not bespecial but universal. Wang’s“Four Not Principle”expresses her ideal about novel. Shebelieves the locality of the experience will highlight and exaggerate the contingency, whileignoring the inevitability, uniqueness will make people obsess and stress the part, develop andexpand the special and neglect the effect of the whole. What’s more, individual cannot beseparated from history and special will eventually import into the universal, therefore theliterary works should refuse to be one-side and personalized to trace the more valuableuniversality. This is obviously agreed with the opinion of Lukacs who advocates that the literary works should start with totality and reflect the most common contact between theobjective realities; secondly, about the world of real life and soul, try to find an order in amess. Wang Anyi emphasizes that the creation of novel depends on the real world. she thinksthat the materials of novel is from real life not imagination, writers should take novel as acarrier, find the essence of life through phenomenon, understand the links between things,legislate for life, set up an order for the chaotic material, reconstruct the soul world. Thisprinciple about creation that she strives to practice is in line with the Lukacs’reflection theory,that is, art is a special form to reflect the reality and the cohesion of abstraction; and artreflects the general process of social life in general not the isolated phenomenon in detail.Thirdly, try to pursuit a large“volume”to show the depth and breadth of the social life.Through this pursuit, sensitivity and preference of major themes in the trend of the times, andrejection of small tastes, Wang Anyi put the integrity of the overall things and logic togetherinstead of polishing a part. She chooses to write in the length of time and the vast socialbackground to show the richness of life and human integrity. If Lukacs was born in this era,she perhaps can become an excellent representative of his totality theory.The second part of the thesis is about Wang’s practice of creation from the perspectiveof totality Theory. It includes three aspects. The first one is the exploration of universalexperience. From“Wenwen Series”to 69th Junior High School Students, Xiao Bao villageand Sea Prosperity, she attempts to break through personal narrative and personal life, andtries to find new material and universal destiny from daily life. Only by this, individuals’fateand society can be linked. This is the first step to put totality into creation theory. Secondly,construct the link between the individual and history. She uses naturalism properly in ThreeLove. Then she returns to the historical narrative by writing Century of Gang Shang. TheStory of Uncle is a review of an era. After completing the destruction of“patricide”, sheobviously felt the necessity of historical reconstruction. Documentary and Fiction andHeartbreak Pacific tell us the history of paternal and maternal family and reconstruct thehistory. Those two works come back to the overall destiny of mankind. Lukacs holds that theliterary works should reflect the reality. It can be understood as a social process. Wanginspects history and constructs the relationship between individual and history, history andmodern times in her works. This is also a kind of practice of totality theory. Last aspect is her exploration to Shanghai’s urban culture and history. In 1990s, she changes her view fromhuman beings to Shanghai and Shanghai citizens. Song of Everlasting Regret interprets thelegend of this modern city. Then in her latest novel Tian Xian, she traces Shanghai’s materialculture back to the late Ming dynasty. By Writing the family history, the fate of generations,and the changes of the city, country, she was called“Red House style”by critics. All aboveshows her overall broad concept of history as well as her pursuit of the volume of workcontent.The third part of the thesis is about the significance of Wang’s creation. She insists onobserving and reflecting society with an overall vision, which provides readers with thewriter’s cognitive view of the integrity of times and life. During the fragmental, personalizedpost-modern era, Wang Anyi’s insistence appears to be more significant.The last part summarizes the whole thesis. The more serious and objective assessment ofWang Anyi, the wider field of vision her novels become. This is due to her continual thinkingand capture of social trends, due to her use of totality theory to observe and reflect society.Her success is a good reference to the creation of contemporary novel.