| In the historical background of national salvation,"science" and "democracy" have become the core thought of the May4th enlightenment, and they are throughout the whole process with profound influence, however, the so-called "science" is different from the "natural science" and "rational spirit" which are correlated and differentiated in the West, at the same time of widely advocating analysis-reductionism and rational and pragmatic life attitude,"science" rises to a kind of "world outlook" with iconoclastic and new strength in order to guide the purpose of the social life, whereas, the so-called "democracy" embraces both respectful human rights of freedom and equality, advocate of democratic and inner spirit of individual liberation, and the strong utilitarian upon which the nation relies. As an enlightenment movement, the May4th enlightenment, regarding the New Culture Movement as pioneer thought, spreads the western advanced thoughts and culture in order to enlighten the Chinese people and recast the national soul, finally fulfill the establishment of modern democratic country. In this process, influenced by the May4th Movement, the May4th Movement new literature emerges, moreover, in the active thought atmosphere and literary context, the first relative mature genre in modern literature history, local novels come, therefore, May4th local novels are imprinted with age and display the vigorous enlightened spirit, regardless of the theme expression, aesthetic pursuit and the writers’ideological dilemma presented etc.Based upon three perspectives of localism, rural portrayal and enlightenment predicament, this paper respectively discusses the expression of local novel, the aesthetic pursuit and inner contradictions, besides, it sorts out the enlightenment soul in the local novels and tries to present the relatively complete structure of the enlightenment discourse. In view of the native soil, writers find the ancient image of peasants and the feudal thoughts of ruling the local land:the advanced peasants are the Chinese peasant groups under scientific and rational analysis. They are echoing the cries of humanity enlightenment of the May4th Movement and broadening the "human discovery" theme in the new literature of the May4th Movement, besides, paying attention to the rights of peasants reflects the inner spirit of democracy in the May4th Movement, moreover, revealing "local custom" is full of the criticism on patriarchal clan system, all these may be embraced into the theme which transforms the nationality, laying local literary theme across the century, even until today the theme still exists in the blood of local literary. In addition, the description of the uniqueness of the rural place exudes a hint of soft light, besides, due to selecting the perspective contrasted with modern civilization, the beauty and tribulation of the native soil coexist in the text, furthermore, the intoxicating regional custom is interweaved with desperate and backward "wasteland", presenting magnificent and corrupt contradiction aesthetics.The local scene and folk custom have recurred the objective requirement for the typical environment in the realism, moreover, the viewing glance and the vivid description have fulfilled the realism style of the local novels and secretly accorded with the objective and realistic aesthetic requirements which the Enlightenment pursues. Besides, the contradiction existing in the writer’s thought seeps into the novel which establishes the unique emotion characteristic of the narrator, forms the limited perspective mainly presenting contradiction provincialism and representing two narrating angles of the omniscient perspective of the country tragedy. In addition, the May4th writers’intuitive impression of native soil is casted on the text, manifesting the "wasteland" image related to the countryside and "suffering" and "death" image about the peasants. The writers look at the Chinese countryside and traditional culture type from the perspective of Enlighten-Modernity, discover Chinese peasants’pains suffered with illness from modern civilized perspective, and survey fleshly destruction and mental deathly stillness of the peasants.Based on the collision between modern and traditional civilization, the consciousness of servility of peasants and the rational spirit contrary to the visual threshold of the enlightenment, the local writers earnestly pursue enlightenment spirit while also unconsciously state the predicament of the enlightenment, manifesting the separation between torchbearers and the persons to be enlightened and the conflicts between enlightenment reason and countryside emotion. Moreover, the distress that beyond peasants’understanding and the predicament that can not initiate the enlightenment compose the spirit quagmire of the May4th local writers, form incomprehensible and divergent embarrassment between torchbearers and the persons to be enlightened in the text, and eventually cause the separation between intellectuals and peasants, and the collision between two kinds of culture and the embarrassment of writers breed two types of emotional conflict. On one hand, they expose and criticize the ugliness of hometown and servility of peasants ruthlessly, on the other hand, they get emotionally attached to the tenderness of hometown and show sympathy for the tribulation of peasants’fate, that make they difficult to make a decision between criticism and sympathy.The May4th enlightenment thought does not only influence the creation of the May4th local novels, but also renders the unique value of the local novels, that is the pursuit of the enlightenment modernity in the local novels, however, because of the paradox existing in the May4th thought, the May4th local novels present the limitation of missing the objective, nevertheless, this limitation does not affect the May4th local writers believing in the enlightenment thought and the insistence of reforming nationality, on the contrary, it will more steadfastly explore the ultimate meaning and objective of the enlightenment and present deep ideological meaning and profound deliberation. |
