Narrative Form And Themes In "Outsiders' Strories" From The May Fourth Movement To The 30ths

Since the late Qing Dynasty, China has constantly been affected by the impact of foreign civilizations due to internal and external social reality. Therefore, the traditional cultural system and closed-type norm of civilization were broken. By continual introspection, Chinese intellectuals were struggling with the searching of the ideal way of national independence and modernization. Under the circumstances, corresponding narrative structure-"outsiders'stories"-in literature emerged consequently. "Outsiders'stories" mostly followed the same plot mode that "outsiders" who had the background of modern civilization entered into relatively closed and stable self-sufficient space because of variety of reasons and pursuits and eventually chose to leave after witnessing and experiencing a series of events. Since Lu Xun, the father of Chinese modern literature, created a series of "outsiders' stories" in Call to Arms and Wandering,Chinese modern literature writers have continuously been writing their own "outsiders'stories" under different contexts in different times. "Outsiders'stories" as a story type was being repeatedly presented, extended and modified in previous hundred years in Chinese modern and contemporary literature."Outsiders' stories" of Chinese modern novels from the period of the May Fourth Movement to the 30ths were discussed in this thesis. Through historical overviews of this story type, the author attempted to present the changing process of the narrative form and themes in "outsiders'stories"The thesis included five parts:introduction, three chapters of main body and conclusion.In introduction part, the author analyzed the significance of the topic, reviewed the current research situation and illustrated the objectives of this thesis and its main contents. In main body part with three chapters, taking time as clue of vertical comparison and styles and schools as clues of horizontal comparison, the author discussed Lu Xun,the 20th local school, Left-wing literature,Fei Ming and Shen Congwen. The first chapter had two sections in which "outsiders'stories" in Lu Xun's work and the 20th local school were discussed. As the father of Chinese modern literature, Lu Xun established the basic narrative form of "outsiders'stories", namely, a negative type of "cultural narrative" that Lu Xun not only expressed the necessity and urgency of "cultural enlightenment" in "outsiders'stories" but also came up with his doubt about enlightenment. Because of the influence from Lu Xun,the 20th local school inherited "cultural enlightenment" in their own "outsiders'stories", however, their narrative techniques and depth of thoughts had a big gap compared to Lu Xun's work. In chapter two, "outsiders'stories" in Left-wing literature were discussed. Among many writers such as Jiang Guangci, in their "outsiders'stories", the narrative form varied from "cultural narrative" to "political narrative"; whereas some Left-wing writers such as Rou Shi still continued to insist in "cultural narrative". These two extremes presented richness and variation within Left-wing literature. Chapter three discussed Fei Ming and Shen Congwen. Their "outsiders'stories" continued the track of "cultural narrative" and obtained positive answers during the creative transformation of tradition instead of Lu Xun's negative narratives. In conclusion part, implications and conclusions were expressed.