The Stick And Losing Of Independent Spirit

The novels about intellectuals occupied an important position in 20th century, but the study on them was not given full attention to as different reasons. In 1980s, Zhao Yuan`s book, "the hard choice", has ever got people`s identification, but since then it`s rare to create any other excellent works.In the studying works about intellectuals, the focus was on the period of May 4th times. There was no systematical study on such novels in 1930s and 1940s,especially during the time of the seventeen years ,the Cultural revolution and from 1980s to 1990s.This article tries to make a study on the novels about intellectuals in 1940s and 1950s,to deplore the intellectuals` spirit changing trajectory in the transition period. This article is cautious to use the concept of intellectual, as not all the writers own the intellectual spirit, and the characters under the writers are too complicated. It`s not suitable to use the concept of intellectual to include all the writers, but this will not hinder us measuring the writers and the characters in their novels by the standard of intellectual.Contemporary intellectuals own the free thinking and independent spirit compared with traditional intellectuals. The spirit of scientific reason and free feelings of democracy are intellectuals` indispensable moral qualities. The intellectuals and new literature in May 4th pave a spiritual tradition for contemporary intellectuals, but the tradition undertakes different levels of constraints and intellectuals` independent spirit shows weak or strong in the ear of changing.It was a time of war in 1940s,and the main theme was national salvage and class` liberation. In different areas ,such as Kuo Min-tang occupied area, Japanese occupied area, liberated area, the writers and their works showed different spiritual styles. In Kuo Min-tang occupied area, at the beginning of war , few works were left which were worthy of being praised because of the poverty of reason and simplified character, though the writers created several novels in response to hurried political purpose and excited feelings. Only to the late part of war, the writers began to calm down and rethink on the life. The rehabilitation of reason made the writers reown the critical spirit and constructional orientation. Many novels about intellectuals no longer stayed on the life surface, but dept into the aspects of national culture and individual`s life, and also had a relative depth and width in arts, when these works reflected the intellectuals` living condition, analyzed their spirit losing, criticized their distorted character and praised their spirit, such as Lao She`s "four generation in a hall",Luo Yi`s "landlords` children", Ba Jin`s "cold night", etc. At the same time, the writers in Japanese occupied area also explored hardly, and created several great novels which reflected the intellectuals` living conditions with deep arts characteristics, such as Shi Tuo`s "marriage", Qian Zhong-shu`s "besieged city". Seeing from the surroundings outsidethe Kuo Min-tang occupied area and Japanese occupied area, the literature in 1940s was not so free as in 1930s,let alone in the time of May 4th . In writers` spirit and their works, the writers in 1940s only succeeded the enlightenment tradition of May 4th metaphorically, and reflected more spirit losing literally. If putting the novels about intellectuals of Kuo Min-tang occupied area and Japanese occupied area in the whole environment of 1940s and 1950s, still we can say the achievements were great.The literature in liberated area, as a special style, has ever experienced thinking freedom before "the speech" was addressed, such as Ding Ling`s novel, "in the hospital". After "the speech" was addressed , the literature was directed into a new paradigm. The literature about workers, farmers ,soldiers became the main trend, and intellectuals became the objects to be reeducated. In the novels, there was a sharp contrast between the intellectuals` narrow-mindedness, selfishness , coward ,shakable and the workers` virtue...