Research On The Survival Predicaments Of Characters In Yan Lianke’s Novels

Yan Lianke’s literary world is a combination of reality and imagination in an extreme environment,and it isn’t only lonely and noisy,but bitter and absurd.He places his characters in hopeless situations and tries to explore the essence of human existence by staring at reality.In real life,people easily fall into difficulties and hardships,and are caught in a dilemma,which is the survival predicament.As a branch of Yan Lianke’s novels’ theme of great suffering,the survival predicaments of the characters are still necessary for further analysis.Therefore,this thesis selects the Yan Lianke’s novels as the research text,the characters’ survival predicaments in the text as the research object.Meanwhile,it uses various theories as the basis during the research,such as existentialism,psychoanalysis,power theory,identity theory,social psychology,narratology and so on.Naturally,the research is to clarify the performances of the survival predicament,point out the writer’ writing features of predicament,clear the existence of human nature,thus to give more power to the readers who experience the resilience of life from those novels and the research.The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the reason of selecting the topic,the research status of Yan Lianke’s works at home and abroad,as well as the purpose and significance of the research.At the same time,it explains the key words of“survival predicament”.The second chapter is the presentations of the characters’ survival predicaments,which is mainly divided into two categories:material predicaments and spiritual predicaments.Further,material predicaments are manifested as poverty,disability and disease,and the spiritual predicaments are displayed as confusion,delirium and desolation.The double pressure of material and spirit shows how hard it is for the characters to survive.The third chapter is about the choice and destination of the characters in the face of the survival predicaments.From the perspective of life,there are two kinds of choice:being towards death and returning to“the peach garden”.From the perspective of death,although death is the ultimate destination for people,there are differences between some people died heavier than mount tai and some died lighter than a feather.Not all death is noble.The fourth chapter is about the narrative modes of the characters’ survival predicaments,which is mainly from four perspectives:carnival narration,dead perspective,dream writing and dialect narration.The bitterness behind the carnival,theruthlessness under the scrutiny of the dead,the illusory reality and the underclass represented by the dialect all tell the plights of the characters’ survival.The fifth chapter traces the writing sources of the characters’ survival predicaments,which are mainly interpreted from the author’s personal experiences and the reflection of his literary view of“God of Realism”.On the one hand,the bitterness from the bottom life,the view of the power reshaped in the army and the desire to express inspiring by knowledge have laid a foundation for the writing of the survival predicaments.On the other hand,the power nature of the society and the desire nature of individuals are included in the inner truth of“God of Realism”,which guide Yan Lianke’s creation.The conclusion sums up the whole thesis and points out the significances,values and deficiencies of Yan Lianke’s writing of characters’ survival predicaments.