On Wang Anyi's Urban Novels

Since the reform and opening to the outside world, especially after the 1990s, with the establishment of the market economy, China's urban novel writing enters a period of high tide. Among the writers, Wang Anyi is an outstanding writer who deserves particular attention. Unlike the clamorous novels of her time, Wang Anyi's works are the responses to the Shanghai's old culture in 1990s' nostalgic trend. She fixes her eyes more on the quiet alley world in Shanghai, and presents a unique daily life picture of Shanghai's historic scene. Wang Anyi's writing shows an attempt to get rid of "the rootless state" of Shanghai and an endeavor to pursue the deep root of Shanghai's regional culture. Being different from the plane description of the urban life, Wang Anyi's novels possess a feature of reason, either in the narration of history or that of the present life. Therefore, her works broaden the urban novels writing in both the width and depth. The thesis endeavors to analyze Wang Anyi's urban novels, its features, and its deep meaning. The thesis falls into three parts, respectively divided into the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.The introductory part includes the general retrospect of Shanghai urban novels' history, the introduction of the thesis's value, writing purpose and main content.The main body consists of three parts. The first part focuses on the Wang Anyi's aesthetic thought on daily life. In Wang Anyi's mind, she regards the quiet alley as the symbol of Shanghai, and she forms her vivid writing view of daily life by the direct dialogues and related comments. In the 20-century's literature, the grand scale narration is in the dominant position, while daily life description is on the verge. Since the 1990s, with the diversities of cultures and values, the daily life presentation has been gradually accepted by the people, and it has acquired an independent value. On the one hand, Wang Anyi inherits the tradition created by "Shanghai writers" (among them, Zhang Ailing was one of the representative writer), who are good at manifesting the daily life of Shanghai, on the other hand, her writing has its distinctive, unique feature.The second part concentrates on the analysis of the nostalgic tie in Wang Anyi's writing. The middle class in Shanghai adopt the western life and form a style of fashion, delicacy and luxury. Instead of the description of the prosperity and glamour of the urban city life, Wang Anyi draws the readers' attention to the daily life of the alley households in Shanghai by depicting the modern life style of the middle class. Through the depiction of the diet and dwellings of middle class people's daily life in Shanghai, she presents other aspects of Shanghai besides the main trend of it.The third part aims at the study of the female images of Wang Anyi's urban writing. By the portrait of the female images in Shanghai, Wang Anyi depicts Shanghai in multi-levels. In a sense, Shanghai and female are closely related to each other. In one hundred year's history of colonization, the females in Shanghai take on a vivid feature of regional color, who have the characteristics of being open-minded, modern, intelligent, and shrewd. Wang Anyi's novels provide us with the double stories of Shanghai and female.Returning to the daily life has become an important philosophical motif of the present society. In today's pursuit of modernity in China, daily life has not been attached much importance. In the sense, Wang Anyi's particular description of daily life in Shanghai is of vital significance. In addition to the manifestation of the wonderful life style of Shanghai's middle class, Wang Anyi's works offer us other cultural dimension as well as the splendor and all vicissitudes of Shanghai.