On Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories

The Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories to be discussed here are those texts:they pictured the terrible man-made perfect societies in another time or space with fabrication and illustration, to prompt the review of mankind's behavior and life style. Since extending implied meaning exists in these texts indicating by the writing techniques like illustration, exaggeration, distortion, grotesqueness and black humor, and the materials dealing with here are all Utopian campaigns in Chinese history, these texts are named the Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories in this thesis.In the past century, the reflection of mankind's behavior and life-style accelerated the prosperity of dystopia novels, and writing techniques and thoughts of them also developed rapidly. Neither the western dystopia novels, nor the Chinese Contemporary Dystopian Allegories, are aimed at denying utopia in a nutshell, but to disclose the dialectical relationship of good wish of better life, utopian campaign and utopian spirit, in other word, they are important part of utopian novels. The Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories tied in criticism of utopian campaigns closely with evocations of utopia sprit, in fact, are all "critical utopias".The Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories, under the influence of western literature and with a specific consideration on significant problems of nation development and differential situation of China, have formed specific ideas, forms and narration modes that different from western novels. This research work, therefore, is trying to understand the links between political, cultural background and implied meaning, narrate model in the texts, and, on this basis, to realize the value of the Contemporary Chinese Dystopia Allegories as "meaningful form" and "formalized content".Since the implied meaning lies in concrete structures, plot patterns and figure types, and the plot patterns of Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories can be separated into several functional items, which can be combined with materials to form different motifs, the Contemporary Chinese Dystopian Allegories can be divided into several kinds according to its motifs:intellectuals in prison, intellectuals built a prison, day-dreaming of becoming a brigand for the intellectuals, appalling exchange between body and substance, and hopeless rescue in the country-island.Wang Xiaobo's novels paid special attention to the first motif, and Ge Fei's and Xiong Zhengliang's novels to the second and third motifs, Yan Lianke's and Li Peifu's novels to the last two ones. The writing of contemporary dystopian allegory in China started from Wang Xiaobo. Effecting by his utopian idea, experience in the Cultural Revolution and the influence by the western literature, Wang Xiaobo's creation of dystopian allegories can be considered as an evolution from fair-tale utopian novels to "critical utopia" novels. Wang's importance for contemporary Chinese literature lies not only in the pioneer role that he plays in the creation history of the Chinese dystopian allegory, but also in the succession allegorized texts that he contributes:the "Age of Silver" and the "Age of Black-Iron", in which the trauma caused by totalitarianism controls to the Chinese intellectuals are revealed. Influence of west dystopia novels can be find in his allegories, but the plot pattern, structure mode and characters settled in his novels are distinguish, that made his creations a kind of breakthrough and overstep.Ge Fei's dystopian allegories are the results of the desire principle that has conducted his writing and his consideration on the significant problems of the society in china since 1990. His unique contribution lies in the rewriting of the history of utopian campaigns since the late Qing dynasty in his "utopia trilogy" with the "freehand" style, and because of which the responsibilities of intellectuals as well as the relationship between utopia and humanity have been discussed reflectively. The complicated emotion of contemporary intellectuals, in other word, a kind of entangle that mixed with fare of utopia and eagerness to utopia that showed in A Charming Face among Peach Blossoms and Mountains and Rivers in Dreamland, together with skillful construction and brilliant elegant lingual art, makes these two novels remarkable. Another novel that reflect on utopian campaign in bandit's lair:Brigand style by Xiong Zhengliang is dealing with the same topic as A Charming Face among Peach Blossoms, but its consideration about the relationship between utopia and humanity is easier than the later one.The persistent fear of being oppressed and being exploited, and the hope, coming with the fear, to rescue and to change the people for the author himself contributed to the characters of the writing of Yan Lianke. The wounds of peasants in utopian campaigns, including growing worship for money and desire nowadays, have been revealed with writing skills like exaggeration, distortion and wired illustration, and the constructions and narrations also witness great development, all these make Yan's Living (Lenin's Kyss) as one of the most important works in the contemporary Chinese literary world. Compared with another writer Li Peifu who criticized utopian campaign almost in the same way as Yan did in his The gate of sheep, Yan Lianke depicted his protagonists more successfully.Although the Dystopian Allegories in contemporary Chinese literary history have witnessed great advance since 1980, the paradox that determined by the complexity of utopia itself and limitation of society is definitely unavoidable in these novels. Meanwhile, problems such as images being pressed by abstract thinking and subjectivity declination still exist in these novels to different extent.