A Study Of "Exposure And Satire" In The Literature Of The 1940s

Exposure and Satire" is a literary debate that took place in the 1940 s,beginning with Zhang Tianyi’s short story "Mr.Hua Wei" published in 1938 in Literature and Art Front.This novel,which for the first time portrayed characters who were not doing their jobs and shouting slogans at the beginning of the war,exposed and satirized the dark side and problems within the war camp,raising the questions of whether war literature should expose and satirize,what kind of exposure and satire was needed,and how to better serve the war by improving the artistic level of exposure and satire.These questions are closely related to realism and reflect the exploration and efforts of writers in the 1940 s to reconcile objective realism with subjectivism(confidence in the victory of the war),and these explorations in realism have been ongoing since the May Fourth Movement.The first chapter compares the introduction and understanding of realism in the May Fourth Enlightenment,the balance of Lu Xun’s realism and the construction of a theory of irony,and the development of revolutionary realism and materialistic dialectics in the 1930 s.At the beginning of the New Culture Movement,Chen Duxiu,Hu Shi and others put forward "realism" based on a cultural-critical stance,but realism at this time pointed more to a spirit and view of life that faced reality.In the Enlightenment context of alternating the old and the new,realism(or Ibsenism)focused on exposing the institutional and moral cultural defects of the old society and emphasized personal criticism of reality,while relatively ignoring the significance of realism as a literary art.On this basis,Mao Dun in 1922 advocated the construction of a new Chinese literary realism with naturalistic objective observation and field techniques.Lu Xun’s realism struck a good balance between the objective realism of realism and the subjective expression of "for the sake of life," mainly through the satirical technique of "revealing love and hypocrisy without a single derogatory word.Revolutionary realism was dissatisfied with the more subtle and undesirable " old realism " and advocated the construction of proletarian revolutionary literature,but the advocates had a shallow understanding of materialistic dialectics,did not pay attention to revolutionary objective realism,and had the problem of " romantic infantilism.Chapter 2 discusses the occurrence of the "exposure and satire" controversy,explaining the narrative errors in the "Mr.Warwick Goes Abroad" incident.The magazine that translated "Mr.Warwick" as "Reform" was actually another Japanese magazine of a different nature,"Bungei." The debate over "Exposure and Satire" reflects the thinking of wartime realist writers: how to uphold objectivity and the literary character of realism,while better serving the war effort.Literary scholars practiced both theoretically and creatively,promoting the portrayal of negative examples and the insistence on generous satire,creating a tide of satirical literature.Chapter 3 describes the different considerations required for satire as an aesthetic ideology in the National Unification Area and the Liberation Area,and the different developments that resulted." Satire is an artistic technique,a rhetorical skill,or a literary genre,but it is not a mere aesthetic form.It is a distorted and hidden expression of the author’s quest for the ideals of "truth,goodness and beauty" from his emotions of anger and hatred.In this sense,satire itself has a certain "prescriptive" and tendentious nature,and it is itself a combination of aesthetic and ideological expression.Therefore,the special political environment of the liberated areas required satirical literature to pay special attention to its position and target audience.