A Thematic Study Of The Reflectiveness In Yanli’s Fictions

Yanli, a Chinese writer with permanent residence in America has produced a number of fictions. Though the significance of his fictions has attracted the attention of some scholars, researches on Yanli’s fictions in academia are still limited.The theme of culture reflection and the narration techniques in Yanli’s fictions are unique and valuable under the context of the development of Chinese literature in North America. The reflectiveness in Yanli’s fictions presented a periodic characteristic as the shift of his perspective of writing. In the first period, his writing focused on modern urban civilization; in the second period, his writing presented a global view, creating a dialogue between the East and the West. This periodic characteristic closely related to the certain cultural environment and the change of his culture identity. The characteristics and the significance of the reflectiveness theme in Yanli’s fictions are mainly elaborated in five aspects. Yanli’s reflection over mankind’s situation in contemporary civilization was divided into two parts. First, by elaborating the plight of literary and artistic creation in our commercial society, as well as the mutation of human nature under contemporary civilization and the tragedy of the conflict in human civilization, Yanli ponders over human’s state as well as how to survive and be themselves in the clash of civilizations, giving a reflection on the alienation brought by this materialistic era to mankind. Second, by adopting a historical and realistic narration method, the author reflected on Chinese history and reality in a global vision. He depicted a real and dynamic homeland. Yanli’s fictions of later period presented a dialogue between the east and the west, giving a reflection on the parochial ethnical and cultural concepts, which was depicted in three aspects. First, by reshaping the image of “the other”, Yanli reflected on Chinese parochial concepts of communication, abandoned the stereotyped image in most literary works. Second, Yanli also gives a reflection on “self-image”. He treated the fiction of overseas students with a strong awareness of “self-retrospection” instead of nostalgia, reflected the rigid, radical thinking and cultural aspects. Third, Yanli combined Western concept of values with the foundation of reflection, breaking the parochial concepts of nation, region and culture, and generated a new zone of language interpretation. Examples included the development of a new homeland consciousness and a new concept of life. Yanli’s fictions adopted a variety of narrative techniques, including intertextuality, meta-narration and prosification. He extensively uses non-narrative language to make a dialogue with the text receiver, thus achieving the intention of reflection in his fiction texts.