Fading Away The Villages

Village is one of the extremely important types of images. There are many unique images of village in the Chinese literature since the ancient time. The image of village bears writers'individual and unique life experience in different eras, and embodies their cultural construction and construction of aesthetic ideal. Based on the specific cultural context with our society transforming into another type, this thesis tries to make deep investigation on the image of village during the past three decades after the opening and reform, so as to probe into its inherent literary value and aesthetic connotation, and seek new space through the study on achievements and limitations of writing of village.IntroductionThis part focuses on discussion about signaficance of the research, literature review, innovation and research methodology. The study on the image of village is based on local literature, local stories and urban, small town community literature. It is a tentative study by interpreting villages of literature with the image theory. It not only differs from traditional research of local literature, but also differs from study on narrative literature and"farmers go to town"narration. Actually, this comprehensive research is done with traditional Chinese critical theory—image. The author holds that image of village in New Age literature embodies the inheritance and innovation of traditional image of village. Thus, it seems to be creative to deeply explore the literary composition characteristics, cultural characteristics ,literary characteristics and aesthetic idea of village in literature, through combining with the achievements of present, literary and cultural study and theory of aesthetics, narrative study, sociology and folklore. On this basis, exploration on a community image study mode which both suits to metropolitan and small towns can be implemented, so as to make the image of traditional critical theory renew vigor in current literature study. Chapter I Definition of the image and villagesThis chapter mainly gives the literary implicature and history of the two concepts:"image"and"village", and their change with time, which will ensure interpretation of the theory scientific. This thesis mainly relates to two issues: (1) The theory of image and the criticism of the contemporary literary Tt is a aesthetic category stemming from traditional Chinese culture for thousands of years in history. Literature innovation and criticism have changed greatly by the cultural transformation since the modern times. Faced with the"unfitness"of current literature reality, the socalled traditional image criticism just makes its modernization transformation inevitable for the contemporary literature. In addition, the western modern researchs also give us some inspire for the the studies of image, such as Kant, Wellek, Pound etc. Especially the postmodern theory, it is very important to the communication betwween the western theory to oriental theory by the the theory of image in"broken up"and"illusion". This thesis tries to make clear and systematise the following several relevant problems: Chinese culture and image, cultural transforming and image, current criticism and image. (2) Villages and the history of the image of village The study provides precondition and basis for study on village. Only if we have a comprehensive understanding of the concept of village, so as to give a clear defination of relevant theory can we achieve smooth and strong study, because"village"in sociology differs from that in literature; A historic study of the images of village in literature is to seek for the differences of villages between classical literature and contemporary literature. Only if putting the villages of New Age literature in the historic development of the literary image can we provide the basis for making scientific judgements for the characteristics of its achievement and limitations, and further get the tendency of the creation in literary of the the images of village in the era of globalization. The so-called "fading away villages" provide an aesthetic expression from the angle of village's composition and changes.Chapter II Writer and the image of villageThis chapter analyzes the relationship between villages and creation of writers with the theory of biography, psychology and"external study". In view of the status of literature in the new period, two issues will be maily discussed: (1) Writers and the love knots of village This is an important problem in New Age literature. Lots of writers in New Age are born in rural areas, or once have experienced a period in villages. Their feelings toward villages directly lead to the description of characteristics and the unique connotation of village. Description of their childhood experience and the adult sense of emotion all have a profound impact on the formation and change of their writing; (2) Writers and the imagine of villages The changing process of the image of village is from the single to the wide range in New Age literature. This is done by the impact of literatural writer and the Age. Starting from reflection on traditional enlightenment and composing real literature, writers have made great contribution and efforts to creative in how to face the plight of villages, studying historic connotation, content and constructing human's spiritual home.Chapter III Composition of the image of villageThis chapter analyzes characteristics of the structural system of the image of villages with iterary sociology, folklore, countryside survey. (Or can be referred to as image systems, because the world of village is consisting of a series of imagery, such as house, trees, folklore, etc.) (1) Image state The world of villages is composed of explicit material. In particular, the world of village is generally composed of the basic image system such as natural image, architectural image , animal imagery, food imagery and tools imagery , which are the material carriers of village image, and have a unique cultural, aesthetic connotations of the writers; (2) Mental imagery It constitutes the "hidden" culture of the world of villages. Especially, the image of custom contains the psychological characteristics and development of the whole nation's culture . Villagers'production, life and spirit all rely on imagery such as religious ritual practices, folklore, games and songs, which play a decisive role in the shaping of people's personalities, behavior; (3) The unique characters They are the core for the village writing. Based on the characteristics of the villages in the transitional period, we may divide the image of village characters into outsiders, reformers, village power, carers and other types. Young reformers are traitors, carrying a special mission in reformimg period, deducing the fate of the unique charm and thus become the most distinguished characters of literature in the New Age; The manager of villages has the complexity of the composition in the New Age, being not only the traditional family and village tyrants who are hostile to the modernization of villages, but also constructers of modern countryside; Outsiders are broadcasters of heterogeneous culture, and usually with a tragic outcome of destiny in a transitional period of society; Carers are the inheritors and defenders of the culture in village, who are still stuck in the traditional sector of society in the new dawn of time refusing to accept a glorious new era, but some villagers have already made a wise move toward the gate of modern society.Chapter IV Characteristics of the image of villageThis chapter mainly studies the cultural and literary characteristics of the image of village of literature in New Age from the perspective of cultural geography, rural sociology and narrative study, which is a fundamental problem concerned by several generations of literary creators in the past century and is a difficulty for the construction of modern culture and literary innovation. (1)Cultural identity It is occlusive, regional and soil for the the culture of village and determines the other attributes of the images villages. Firstly, traditional villages are in a state of self-occlusion community form, who stick to themselves and reject the new culture-specific characteristics in a long-term development. This can be embodied of the literature in the New Age, and has become root causes for cultural transformation and cultural conflicts; The culture of soil is the fundamental characteristic of the the culture of village. The clothing, food, shelter, transportation, ethics, and morality in the village all distributed a strong atmosphere of soil; Regionality is geographical differences between villages. Plateau, plains, snow-capped mountains, desert are caused by a variety of natural and geographical characteristics of villages in different regions. In addition, this chapter is also related to the debris characteristics in the culture of village.(2)Literary identity A lot of the unique narrative patterns are created frequently during the construction of the villages of the literature, such as"in","out"narrative, etc. The cultural pattern is entirely different between the traditional village and the modern city. The cultural pattern is entirely different between the traditional village and the modern city. That is to say, there is a fracture in them by the points of Mr. Giddens. The narrative for"urban-rural conflict"is very prosperity today for the clash of cultures by transformation of society. So, the narrative patterns of"in"or"out"have become common as the form of aesthetics in the New Age. The narrative structures of image have been emerging frequently as another major gain during this time. It is not only the influence of the traditional aesthetics of images, but also the influence of increasingly "symbolic" and "broken" expedites. The"space narrative structure"with the scatter-style provides a unique aesthetic narrative for the community literature. This is a major creative contribution by the aesthetic image of village in the New Image of Literature.Chapter V Symbol meaning of villagesThe Symbol implication is one of the important characteristics of the aesthetic image of China.This chapter will have an in-depth analysis for the symbol meaning of the image villages and thinks that there are three aspects in the symbol meaning of the image of villages in the New Age Literature. (1) Metaphor of"home"Village is the"home"for daily life and spiritual world. If the village of the childhood memories is a dreamy with the poetic color, the village of the real world is the home for adults. This has become a everlasting literary motif in the ancient literature of China. The spirit home of the village is a natural connotation for the literature between Chinese and foreign because the great development of the modern industrial civilization, especially caused a departure from their homes on the land by industrial civilization. (2) The symbol of the nation-state The social and cultural transformation must lead to the reflection on the traditional culture for the writer. In this time, the image of villages is looked as the nation-state in the literary world. The theory of"The Fable of the Third World"that is writed by Mr. Jameson and"The imagined community"that is found by Mr. Anderson in the United States tells us the aesthetic characteristics of the villages.The village of the literature in the New Age has an important functions for the excavation and reflection on the national spirit and traditional culture. (3) The fable of the history We can easily find that the history of the village by Jameson's theory. The history of China during the transition is described in the fable by the history of villages in this time. We can find out the path of China for the 20 century, which is a unique vision to spy on the process of national history and the hidden soul. And we can be able to find how to become modern step by step for the villages in the conflict culture between Chinese and Western. ConclusionThere have been substantial expansion of the constituion of villages, cultural identity and symbol meaning in the 30 years in the New Age. The the lack of philosophy of the writings of village still exists. And the innovative is obviously insufficient in the art form and discourse use. These are all constraints for the original of the image of vollages, so the so-called"The end of Native Literature"and"The end of the village"are essentially transplantation of"end of theory"from the Western in the context of the existing creation. In terms of whether Chinese literature or the literature of the human, the village should be the awareness of human self-synchronization and the timeless home of human beings.