The Variation Of Wang Meng's Novels And Contemporary Political Culture

With the view of political culture and close reading of texts, this dissertation investigates the generative process of Wang Meng's novels in the context of contemporary political culture based on some historical details. It analyses both the intimacy and alienation between Wang's novels and the dominating ideology to reveal the richness and complexity of Wang's cultural personality, which is significant for the study of complex relationship between political culture and literary creation in China.There are altogether five chapters besides the introduction and conclusion.The introduction sums up the existing related research achievements and puts forward the arguments of choosing this topic. Moreover, there is a theoretical definition of Political Culture and the dissertation structure in this part.Chapter one concerns the innovation of ideas. The establishment of the ruling status of Chinese Communist Party (hereinafter "CCP") undoubtedly brings about the leadership in the culture area. In fact, CCP has attached great importance to the development of new political culture and her guidance over its development direction ever since the appearance of Talks at the Yan'an Forum of Literature and Art (hereinafter "Talks")by chairman Mao. Talks, the classical text of CCP's policy of literature and art, not only has a great influence on the trend of China's contemporary policy and structure of literature and art, but also exerts an extensive effect on the ideas, creation and criticism of literature and art and the writers'life. The canonization of Talks means the interpretation and over-interpretation of Talks and the formation of integration of literature and politics as well. To establish the legality of mainstream ideology, the regulation and purge of humanistic intellects are inevitable. Under this circumstance, Wang's perseverance in subjectivity of literature leads him to transfer the relationship between literature and politics from affiliation to equality, which gives rise to his being labelled as rightist due to anti-Party and anti-socialism.Chapter two focuses on this dissertation's topic. The politicization of text interpretation is the important content and feature of integration of literature and art. Taking Wang's work A Young Newcomer in the Organization Department (hereinafter "A Young Newcommer")as a case, this chapter reveals the political yardstick of text interpretation and binary thinking mode in this work based on detailed historical materials. The publishment of A Young Newcomer is, in nature, a product of specific context of politics and literature, in which all kinds of literature and art are so welcomed that the intellects feel very delighted. By studying the previous discussions on A Young Newcomer and setting ourselves in the situation of contemporary politics and culture, it can be revealed that politics is the core in the integration of literature and politics.Chapter three studies the issue of value position. Wang's transfer process of value position can be inferred from his intimacy and alienation with the dominating ideology. With a comparative analysis of A Young Newcomer and Scenery Here, we can discover the profound influence of contemporary politics and culture on Wang's novels. The polyphonic consciousness and equal dialogues in A Young Newcomer'manifest' Wang's perseverance in subjectivity of literature and alienation from the dominating ideology which turns A Young Newcomer into an"unusual" novel in that time. However, in Scenery Here, Wang takes an initiative to cater to the dominating ideology so that there is an unharmonious disunited state between political narration and daily life narration. The political correctness threatened the writer so much that subjectivity in the literature is gone. This transfer process of value position is embodied in the characters of Wang's novels as well. Divided by 1958, when Wang Meng was labelled as a rightist, the choice and shaping of characters are very different. Before 1958, the leading characters are intellects, while after 1958, they are mainly workers, peasants and soldiers. The transition of leading characters from intellects to workers, peasants and soldiers undoubtedly results from the regulation of the dominating ideology.in that time, namely, to write for the workers, peasants and soldiers. The transfer process of value position is certainly a result of political regulation and purge on humanistic intellects and the unconscious influence of political culture on writers'mental world. In contemporary context of political culture, the formation of cultural personality of Wang Meng also has something to do with Soviet literature.Chapter Four discusses the originality in Wang Meng's novels. His originality goes hand in hand with the mind emancipation movement in the contemporary politics and culture in China. Without the movement, there will be no correction of the Leftist trend, nor there will be the breakup of the "Two Whatevers". Accordingly, there will be no "stream of consciousness" novels by Wang Meng, created under the influence of Modernist Arts in the West. The originality of Wang Meng's art is demonstrated in his deep reflection of the Leftist politics in China from a special point of view, in the probing into the anguish and anxiety of the mind and in the discovery of the complexity in life and human nature. Moreover, it is reflected in the awakening of individual consciousness. He seeks to find a style of his own. By breaking the border of poetry, prose and fiction, borrowing the Western Modernist technique, he created lots of novels that are praised "oriental stream of consciousness".His originality is also reflected in the turning from the political narration to the daily events'record. In discovering the meaning of the common people's common life with his novels that deal with the daily life, Wang Meng created a new trend beside the literary mainstream of his time.Chapter five, the problem of the research in revolutionary culture. In the context of china's contemporary politics and culture, Revolutionary culture plays an enormous and far-reaching roles on the intellectuals, It decided the treatment of intellectuals to the history and reality, tradition and modern, social and personal thoughts and attitudes towards life. The deep impact of the revolutionary. culture on contemporary intellectuals is manifested in intellectuals'revolutionary thinking, It's typical paradigm is the radical opposition to the way of thinking. To The Chinese Communist Party , Intellectuals are part of bourgeois, They treated the revolution with something of weakness, arid instability. The way of reforming the intellectuals,making them' revolutionary, is to let intellectuals along with the workers, peasants and soldiers, A concrete path is political study,second political movement, third to go to factories, rural labor, receiving more education from workers and peasants. There is a common theme in Wang meng's many works,that is revolutionary. In these works, the nucleus of his characters he paid much attention to, is the revolutionaries. His historical reflections to revolutionary, of intellectuals in the context of the revolution,to be revolution, following the revolution, as well as the artistic expression of the life course of consciously accepting for a revolutionary transformation, of deeper reveals on intellectuals'mental injury ,agony and perplexity,made by deviation from Revolutionary, consisted a cultural dictionary about china's contemporary intellectuals and the revolutionary.The section of "Conclusion" has pointed out that Wang Meng as a highly ideological and political consciousness but strong sensitivity and artistic talent of the writer, his colorful and varied conflicts novels art world, is a kind of inevitable phenomenon. This varied and contradictions is not only his personal problem, but also a time of political and cultural conflicts and changes in mental performance(but also the mental performance of political and cultural conflicts and changes at one time).Different from many other writers, Wang Meng has deliberately and consciously pursue this "variable" to form a literary and spiritual of "butterfly" image, which constantly changing his flight posture and dancing in colorful political and cultural space, and in the end, to form the richness and depth of feeling in his ideological and artistic world.From relations between the politics and culture to Wang Meng's novels, this paper analyzes the polyphony of the two-vioced dialogue between politics and culture in the early works of Wang Meng, and discusses the split of text as his literary complex is depressed by his political complex after he is classified as right-wing. Therefore, it reinterpretes the underlying the political and cultural factors why Wang Meng is so interested in Stream of Consciousness, and his intention to seek the spiritual roots of politics and culture hidden in his combination between narration politics and daily life. Finally, the paper analyzes in detail the central themes of political narration in his novels, that is, the feature of theorein presented in his revolutionary narration. Such arguments show that Wang Meng, no matter how "volatile" he is, his spirit of the character is unchanged, and this is his own deep understanding and expression of contemporary Chinese political culture.