On The Images Of Elder Sons In The Modern Family Novels

There are just a few typical characters in the modern Chinese literature who are well known among the reading circle, among which the image of the elder sons has drawn more and more concerns. Modern authors have created a series of elder sons' images such as Gao Juexin(Family by Ba Jin), Qi Ruixuan( Four Generations under One Roof by Lao She), Jiang Weizu ( Rich Man's Children by Lu Ling) etc. Centered around these three modern family novels and based on the former research achievements, this article is aimed at probing at the elder son image's meaning in literary history.Presupposing the careful reading of the original novels and the examination of the elder sons' activity characteristics and psychological activity, the first part of this article has analyzed the elder sons' psychological characteristics and drawn a generalization and summation of the various levels and common cores in their characters.The second part focuses on probing the cause of the elder sons' character. In the description of modern writers, the elder sons share the common cultural symbolic meaning with modern and contemporary intellectuals, which is the major reason for the elder sons' everlasting glamour as well as the presupposition of this part. Therefore, the probe of the cause of the elder sons' character formation is equal to probing into the cause of the intellectuals' character formation. This article argues that the embarrassing situation at the crossing between the horizontal and vertical coordinate is the historical context of the formation of the elder sons' character. The negative factors in the traditional culture have become their protective talisman, which help them retain this character. The elder sons' situation in their big families is the objective contributing factor of their character.In the third part of the article, the author is trying to inquire into the cause of the elder sons' image formation. The appearance of any literary image must have close relationship with authors who created it, which is why this article is trying to experience and figure out the authors' psychological motivation in the historical background from the perspective of personality. Having witnessed their counterpart's experiences as well their own sufferings, contemporary authors have created this literary images with ever-lasting glamour out of their mixed feeling involving criticize, love and the voluntary introspection.In the last part of this article, the author will probe the image of elder son's value and significance. The appearance of elder sons image series are scene after scene of tragedies. This kind of novel itself also possesses tragic features. Based on the analysis and definition of tragedies both at home and abroad, this article focus on the tragic destiny of elder sons.With the comparison of Russian "Superfluous Man", this article will also generalize the elder sons' features as the Chinese "Superfluous Man" against the historical setting wnich gives birth to these images. In the end, this article will illustrate this kind of novels' carrying over and blazing new trails of the traditional literary style.