| The novel about clothing in Chinese liberated areas is based on the narration forcountry/class of proletarian revolution. From the narration for clothing, the author notonly does research into people’s clothing, appearance and build in novels of liberatedareas, but also explores revolutionary discourse on the issues of a body, discipline andcontrol etc. Clothing is not only an important means of creating characters by novelists,but a system of discourse and places of right. Descriptions of clothing in Chineseliberated areas is mainly focused on "fight" and "labor" instead of people itself.Conversely, narration for people serves as a minor character. Thus, the way that positivecharacters (the revolutionary fighters and ordinary farmers) dress in the novel is alsocentered on "fight" and "labor". At that time, there was limitation of aesthetic standardsof relatively pure struggle for beauty and labor for beauty, which had an impact on howpeople dressed mentally. By the aesthetic standards, on the one hand, novelists inliberated areas give a positive description of main clothing. Although revolutionaryfighters and ordinary farmers in novels are in rags, their clothing also has a certainaesthetic effect with a strong revolutionary will. On the other hand, novelists also give anegative description of main clothing. Characters on behalf of the feudal landlord class,the bourgeois and poor farmers and so on are included in the novel. Novelists only showpolitical and moral criticism of the clothing instead of an aesthetic appreciation of it. Byclothing aesthetic standards, it is not only the principle and method novelists use forcreating characters spontaneously in the writing, but an important basis andmeasurement of judging ethical and moral characters. However, when "labor forbeauty","the struggle for beauty" aesthetic standards of narration for clothing go toextremes gradually, or become the only and unique standards, the richness of aestheticappreciations of characters in the novels will be lost, which even makes a novelist losehis or her way in writing. |
