Sound And Fury

IntroductionThe reform and opening-up policy in the 1980's not only brings people economic abundance, but also stimulates the once-sluggish self-consciousness in the individuals' mind. Therefore, the respect of individuality, the expression of self, and the stress on man's inner world become the overwhelming social trend, and life-consciousness in literature also correspondingly arises out of horizon. Wang Anyi is such a writer who captures life consciousness in social development and carries it along. The complexity and delicateness of life determines that there are a variety of perspectives on life. People of different personalities, experiences and environments have different approaches to and expressions of the same object. In fact, it is the belief that literary creation can only derive from the writer's personal experience that makes Wang Anyi have a unique understanding and convey of life-consciousness. In her literary texts, Wang Anyi observes and reveals social events from the perspective of individual life, and she tries to find the meanings and values of life by regarding it as the object of her major concern. In this thesis, I plan to explore Wang Anyi's life-consciousness from three aspects: (1) love; (2) perseverance; (3) loneliness.I. Love: conveying the code of lifeEver since there was the differentiation of both sexes-male and female, love has been finding its reason for existence in the human world. The pursuit of love is the return to the origin of human life. The satiation and realization of love make life plentiful and prosperous. Through love, Wang Anyi's works examine life in a comprehensive way, trying to find the harmony and balance of life, and hence finding the code of life.1. Spiritual love. The sheer spiritual love tells us that, on the one hand, life is also a spiritual and emotional existence, and on the other hand, although spiritual love satiates a person's emotion, realizes the desire for interpersonal communication, and makes life into beautiful blossoms, sheer spiritual love and pure emotional communication cannot take the place of life's need for other things.2. The struggle with sexual desire. Wang Anyi believes that sexual desire can upgrade one to paradise, but it also can degrade one to abyss. In some texts, she even deliberately creates a world of only a man and a woman, depriving them of their social elements. Only in this way can men and women who do not assume social bearings liberate their bodies and minds, making life obtain the utmost happiness and freedom. Any freedom has a limit, and not all life's needs can be infinitely satiated; the abuse of love and sexual desire will lead to disaster.Now that man's desire cannot be eliminated, then when faced with unavoidable life impulses, man can reach utmost harmony and freedom in life and realize the values of life only through the resurrection of sex.3. The conflict between life and culture. In fact, there is no sheer human love; individual life's acts and emotions are always produced consciously or unconsciously by the joint forces of various elements, and love is no exception. In the various conflicts, Wang Anyi always focusesher eyes upon the conflict between life and culture. There is a perpetual conflict between life and culture. How should man coordinate this conflict in order to make his life more beautiful is Wang Anyi's mediation left for us, which therefore makes her texts bear more profound meanings and values.II. Perseverance: embodying the quality of lifeLife takes its way towards death since its very birth. On such a transient and doomed journey of life, there are thorns, hardships and dangers anywhere and anytime; only by perseverance can life continue and perfect itself one generation after another.Under Wang Anyi's pen, perseverance enables one not only to live, but also to bear the denotation of spiritual ascending. Living itself is unconscious and instinctive, while living with spiritual ascending is conscious and with some belief, ideal and inflexibilit...