Lu Xun's Fictions And Drama

While the traditional research on Lu Xun's fictions mainly analyzes his works by "regarding fictions as fictions", this dissertation attempts to illuminate, interpret and study his fictions from the perspective of drama study which is a "cross-art form" approach. On one hand, the author's relative practices on drama are sorted with "biographic study", on the other, dramatic traces in his fictions are explored through "close reading". Then ideas, theories and strategies of drama study are employed to inspect and study the works. In this way, we try to seek the new features and aesthetic qualities brought to his fictions by the art of drama so that new findings can be made on Lu's profound thinking expressed in his works. Based on the study of the relationship between Lu and the art of drama, this work attempts to make an intensive research on the relationship of his fictions and this art form in aspects of character, language, structure and technique of expression on the logic foundation of pursing the same or similar aesthetic effects.The whole dissertation goes in five chapters.The first chapter carefully arranges and reviews Lu Xun's activities concerned with drama, especially his dramatic criticism on the foundation of his writings on this art form. It is safe to say that he has a quite close relationship with this art form. On the whole, he is quite familiar with its content and form. The prosperous local drama in his hometown Shaoxing specially has everlasting cultural influences on him. Though his efforts on resisting flaws in Chinese collective consciousness prevent him from leading real dramatic creation, the art of drama leaves far-reaching influences on his literary practices. As a result, not a few dramatic elements are blended into his fictional works.The second section focuses on "the relationship between characters in Lu Xun's fictions and drama". Superficially, characters in these works have direct connections with those in dramas and according to the ways they are related, they can be divided into four types—audience, drama singers, performers and reporters. Though related to drama characters in different ways, they all carry deep and rich meanings. What's more, dramatic items and librettos chosen well echo their identities, circumstances and psychological states so that the great tension between the dramatic works'original meanings and their indications in the new modern context creates more rich and generous art atmosphere for his fictions. At the deeper level, Lu delicately syncretizes dramatic conflicts with characterization in fictions and pays more attention to characters'inner dramatic features. Through characters'contradictory relations, their abnormal and ridiculous reasoning as well as their sharp transitions of fates, Lu well displays their contradictory inner world and distinct personalities together with dramatic features of their common circumstance.The third chapter discusses "the relationship between the language of Lu Xun's fictions and drama". Characters'discourses are basically displayed in a dramatically direct way. They carry a kind of illusion that they get rid of narrators'control and "go as they like". As a result, it seems that subjects of the discourses get free from the agencies of narrators and meet with us "directly", which achieves a kind of objectivity and vitality. Characters'discourses also evidently reflect features of drama discourses, that is, they not only demonstrate characters'personalities, but also have direct viewing sense of action. This sort of discourse with action sense points to characters'living states and more importantly, to their mental states. Another important characteristic of Lu's fictional language is its strong sense of color. The three basic color terms he uses and appreciates most--white, black and red--are unique color assortments of actors'make-up and costumes in Shaoxing local drama. They shape the author's ideas and values so that a special cognitive form of color metaphorization comes into being. Lu's frequent employment of color terms inspires readers'imagination, initiates their aesthetic appreciation and mobilizes their sentiments just like the special make-up and costumes in traditional Chinese drama do.The fourth chapter centers on "the relationship between structures of Lu Xun's fictions and drama". The first part of it explores the similar aesthetic ideals of his fictions and drama in aspect of temporal and spatial structure. Lu's exquisite time setting in narrating indicates his brand new conception on that and its profound perception. His arrangement of dramatic tempo which features alternation of scenes and ellipses in fictions breaks the norms of this art form and largely exemplifies his aesthetic principles of objectivity, directness and factuality. His introduction of present tense as the basic one embodies his works'dramatic art features and challenges the conceptions on narrating tense of Chinese traditional fictions. The second part throws light upon the dramatic artistic effects that Lu goes after from the perspective of plot structure. Lu's fictions possess not only the compact, wrought, centralized and organized external plot structures of drama, but also the internal ones with comprehensive indications. This double-structure in his fictions is similar to those of dramas and structures in the two art forms all explain "the dialectical unity of completion and under-completion". However, they are fundamentally different in scope of structural significance. Lu's inventive structure arrangement also serves as a great breakthrough in Chinese traditional fiction structures.The last chapter studies"the relationship between expression techniques of Lu Xun's fictions and drama."Lu's references to drama in expression techniques are mainly demonstrated in his methods of"non-background arrangement"and"slickness". His conscious introduction of the first method makes the contexts of fictions succinct, penetrating and expressionistic; also, these contexts exert the function of performing. In the display of background, Lu learns from Chinese drama and chooses the approach of dynamic presentation. The "slickness" in his works doesn't come into being accidentally; it is an important method he creates under the influences of drama. This technique features interlude of comedians and humorous commentary of narrators. It achieves the artistic effects by exposing and satirizing the reality in a comical way just like joking with the buffoons. At the same time, it has the distancing effect the same as western dramatists'efforts to set a distance between audience and the stage so that readers are led to make sensible pondering and evaluation of fictions.In conclusion, the introduction of drama and dramatic elements brings to Lu Xun's fictional works aesthetical effects of drama, creates new aesthetic features and makes his works more expressive in exploration of thematic meaning. Lu makes absorption, blending and innovations of dramas in his fictions so that the scope of Chinese fictional poetics is expanded and inspiring art approaches and examples are provided for the development of Chinese fictions as well as the flourishment of contemporary fiction writing.