The Expression Of Youth With Discontinuous Cultures

The so-called"post-1980"generation refers to those who were born after 1980. The post-1980 young writers are becoming a new-rising group in the literature field. At the beginning they are known as young writers individually. Currently a young group of writers has been formed. This overthrows both the definition of literature and the traditional mode of becoming a writer. The works of the post-1980 young writers are usually focusing on the anxiety and crankiness of young men. Their young ages have become one of the attractions for people who buy their books. Furthermore, their activities have strong commercial atmosphere. More and more young people become the faith readers of the works written by the post-1980 young writers because of the style of crankiness, particularity, and fashion. However, beneath the shining phrases in the literatures and the imagines beyond the experiences of the post-1980 young writers, there lay hairbrained feelings and indulgent appetency. One can also see their poorness of idea and emptiness of feeling. The post-1980 young writers also usually do not self-identify the traditional culture. Their poor spirit and mediocre soul is degrading the traditional view of value and spirit of arts. This has also been the drawbacks for the works written by the post-1980 young people.This thesis tries to describes the particular background of forming the particularities of the young people's writing from the historical view horizontally and longitudinally, which is called"one-longitudinal- influence"and"two-horizontal- influence"in this thesis.The so-called"one-longitudinal-influence"(see Chapter 1) means the background of culture through the past years, particularly the period of cultural-revolution (from 1967 to 1977). The cultural-revolution destroyed the inheritance of the traditional culture. Without the support of the traditional culture, the post-1980 young people grew up in vacuum of culture. Therefore, they do not have inherent literature spirits and belief. Usually they are wild about the unruliness, which is shown from their particularity of "anti-tradition beyond the tradition". Such a reformation without inherity is impossible to realize any transcendent development for the traditional literature. During pursuing the popularity constantly, the post-1980s demonstrated an emotion without concentrative soul and with the absence of evaluation. This weak resource of young will limit the post-1980s so that it is difficult for them to break through the bottle-neck of the young situation.The so-called"two-horizontal-influence"(see Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) means that the young people grew up along with aloneness as well as the impact from the commercial society. The policy of unique-baby in China resulted in a new population of these unique-babies. When they were the unique baby in the whole family, the post-1980 young people have obtained lots of favor and formed some special characteristics, such as rebelliousness, aloneness, weakness, self-adoring, and blankness. All these specialties are included their works. As the first generation of"unique-baby", they even do not have a robust personality. When the political society is transformed to an economic type, the literature becomes diverse. In the commercial society, young people are immersed by the material demands. Writing becomes one of the ways to achieve fame and benefits for them. More and more teenagers are titled by"talent of writers". More seriously, some 5~6 year old children also become writers. Such a trend is pushed by the parents who are eager for quick success and instant benefit and the merchants who pursue only benefits. The generation of the"talent children"must depend on the basis of money. However, the emotion of youngness presented in these talent children won't be understood by poor children.In Chapter 4, the crisis for the literatures of the post-1980s is discussed. This crisis is formed under the impacts from the"two-horizontal-influence"and"one-longitudinal-influence". Because of the"two-horizontal-influence"and"one-longitudinal-influence", the popularity of the literature makes that the literature words become close to the common life. However, the disappearance of the aesthetic distance indicates that the age of"reader died"is coming. This results in the crisis of literature soul. No one can find the spirit of self-examining and self-criticizing, also the imagination of art and the transcendence of aesthetic. There is no soul garden for the literature.If there was no the longitudinal influence, i.e., without the discontinuity of culture, the post-1980 young people would have the support from traditional culture. In this case, the horizontal influence would not be so strong.If there is no discontinuity of culture, the post-1980 young people won't be in vacuum of value so that they won't be trapped by nihilism. They shouldn't allow that the literature becomes a tool of commercialization. The works of the post-1980 young people don't have a deposition of thinking. Furthermore, the literature soul is becoming popularized and commercialized. In fact the fatal reason for such a situation is not from the western culture and commercial society. Indeed it is because of the discontinuity of culture.In this thesis, the works of the post-1980 young people are discussed due to the worry for them. The criticism is not for negating them completely. They are also not regarded as a hopeless generation. Instead, because they are smart and important generation, we have to find the problems and solutions for them.