National Consciousness And The Enemy-occupied Area Literature

As the cultural fight-back is one of the most important approaches for people in enemy-occupied area to carry out their will of fighting back, national consciousness in enemy-occupied area literature has been endowed with more important significance. When "the nationality" gradually becomes the main part of history, it has guaranteed the feasibility of the dissertation that studying the Chinese modern literature from the view of national consciousness. Furthermore, the enemy-occupied area literature takes a special existence in Chinese modern literature, which is more advantageous to excavating some hidden fact. The historical data of enemy-occupied area literature has provided the innovation guarantee of this dissertation. From the view of "national consciousness", taking enemy-occupied area literature from 1937 to 1945 as research object, the dissertation discusses the way of the existence and the significance of the national consciousness in enemy-occupied area literature. The dissertation combines the comprehensive study and case study and discusses the national consciousness in enemy-occupied area literature from four aspects: the writers, the literary periodicals, the collective memory, and the narrative syndrome.The first chapter takes writers who created the enemy-occupied area literature as the research object, perspectives their points of view and choices in the national crisis through analyzing their different survival ways and the works they create in the enemy-occupied area. Through the classification research to the enemy-occupied area writers' survival ways, the dissertation demonstrates that different survival ways writers adopted, they actually withstand the same moral pressure in their innermost feelings. At the same time, the dissertation proves that the national consciousness has the significant influence to writers' points of view and the choices. With enemy-occupied time went on, different writers had the national consciousness in different levels, which causes them to make different choices.In this chapter, three typical writers in enemy-occupied area, whose national consciousness were in different levels were chosen. They are Shan Ding, Zhang Ailing and Zhou Zuoren. The dissertation analyzes that Shan Ding's works were full with realistic spirit, revolt consciousness, the national confidence as well as the author's individual choice and the suffering experience, which proved the intense national consciousness is the source of unyielding fighting spirit. There appeared the national consciousness existence everywhere in his works. But the rise of female writers, taking Zhang Ailing as a representative, is an important phenomenon in enemy-occupied area literary arena. The dissertation has analyzed the cause of this phenomenon's origin. When the national narration was absolutely suppressed, under the pressure of survival and the national consciousness, the enemy-occupied area writers, especially some female writers pioneered another kind of speech; they avoided some sensitive words through daily life narrating. It's the female writers' positive response to the reality world, as well as an expedient strategy for realizing their national consciousness in enemy-occupied area. The dissertation also mentioned the inner connection of female writers' individual anxiety, civilization of anxiety and the national destiny misfortune. The national consciousness also exists in their works. As an intellectual, Zhou Zuoren's choice manifests a more complex point of view in the enemy-occupied area. The personal benefit, the responsibility as an intellectual and the moral pressure of national consciousness, cause Zhou Zuoren has many possibilities in choice and behavior in the enemy-occupied area. Disregarding the temporal situation, under "invariable" individualism, Zhou Zuoren put his personal benefit above the national benefit, which caused a tragedy not only of himself, also of the time. This chapter elaborates that enemy-occupied area writers' identity and maintenance to their nationality has important influence in holding together the entire national spirit.The second chapter analyses national consciousness in literary periodicals. Literary periodicals placed an important role in the modern literature movement. The literary periodical origination has provided an important way for the national consciousness dissemination. The dissertation concerns the possible reasons for the appearance of the enemy-occupied area literary periodical not only lies in that Japan and the puppet regime were in the need of dominance but also in that the creator obtains the publication of literary periodical with many kinds of reasons, such as "nothing to do with politics" and "only to spread culture". The dissertation also analyses the reasons of why national consciousness exists in literary periodical: in one hand, the editor makes the entire process manifest their national consciousness through the arrangement of article use, style methods and so on; in the other hand, the manuscript of the writers in the enemy-occupied area itself contains national consciousness.The dissertation proves that there are differences in the performance of national consciousness in different types of literary periodical. It takes The Chinese Literary Art, Violet, Panorama as examples to analyze the performance of national consciousness in different types of periodical. With the background of government operation, The Chinese Literary Art dispalys a comparatively complex picture of "consciousness", in which unintentionally revealed "national consciousness" and the compulsively propagandized "current political situation consciousness" formed sharp contrast. On the one hand, because of the restriction of publication background, The Chinese Literary Art has to print some propaganda works. On the other hand, The Chinese Literary Art printed many works which is filled with "national consciousness". The fact that national consciousness exists in The Chinese Literary Art and literariness work takes the main part, indicates that the editor has persevered "national culture" in an adverse situation. The market operation background and independent edition system of Violet have guaranteed it to choose manuscript freely. The only editor Zhou Shoujuan brought forth the changing of crescent school writers in national crisis: from game to national consciousness. Through its pure and formidable literature power, violet attracted readers, and provided possible spatial for people's desires for culture. National culture' s virtue of Panorama originates directly from the editor's strong will to preserve the national culture. It can be divided approximately into 2 periods. The two main editors of it are Chen Dieyi and Ke Ling. Through their respectively different edition method, it has not only reflected that they have some differences in literature art edit~the former favors the popularity while the latter pursues more brighter new literary arts; but also their similar edit thought--They all consciously manifest the extension of national culture while edit the article and has publicized the rebellious spirit and national consciousness to various degree. National consciousness which Panorama publicizes positively got together large quantities of excellent writers and attracted many readers. It may be said as "the fight fortress" in persevering in the national culture.The third chapter analyses the role which national collective memory played in the national crisis. The national collective memory itself is not only the component of national consciousness, but also the important basic part that can sustain and develop the national consciousness as well as the national spirit .This thesis discussed these in three aspects: country consciousness, awareness of the national history, national language.The authors of the enemy-occupied areas reflect the agony and hatred of the enemy-occupied area in a realistic way, and they express their homesick sorrowfully. Being sad, they also unfold the wings of imagination about the country: first, to imagine constructing a society where we can exchange a life for another, a society where has national dignity and human dignity; second, to appeal for the Chinese who are full of enthusiasm in building their country; third, to looking forward this kind of life where the nature is harmonious and people get along equally. This thesis also discussed that as a sort of literature viewpoint, "the local literature" of the enemy-occupied areas is opposite to the "cheating' literature of the authority in the enemy-occupied areas. The posing of it has important significance to the development of the enemy-occupied area literature. Firstly, The deep local sensation and national affection which pervaded in the country literature are forceful resistance to the colonial authority, Moreover, the advocating of the local literature gives the literature in invades areas a character of facing the life bluntly.The nation's historical memory is the premise in approving a nation or a country. Because only through the history, can a nation be aware of itself thoroughly. The nation's historical memory of the enemy-occupied area literature can be embodied in these aspects: first, the individual's worship to the ancestors and the national consciousness; second, the brilliant achievement through the nation's history'; third, the national custom sustains the national emotion and the common memory. While the nation's historical emotion takes on two trends in the enemy-occupied area literature----nation's inferiority and nation's pride, which directly reflect people's attitude towards their nation. The former can easily lead to national collective exocentric psychology; the latter thus act as follows: first, express their unsatisfactory to Japan and the puppet regime by describing people's misery life under the different national dominance and people's indifference to the current propaganda; second, express their praise to national culture and contempt to colonial culture; third, care and worry about the nation's future destiny. The latter is helpful to strengthen national dignity, to produce strong national identity.The popular use of the history theme is, in fact, the embodiment of the author's deep understanding to the mass's national emotion inclination at that time. The function to borrow the history theme mainly embodied in the following aspects; first, describe the subconscious national emotion of the ancestors, express the realistic indignation in seeking the tragic power of ancestor's character; second, express the national history destiny and the misfortune that the nation suffered in real world; third, to continue the national spirit and national wisdom by historical excellent tradition; fourth, make out the historical lesson to warn people by posing some historical characters' tragic destiny. Despite of this, one distinct feature of enemy-occupied area literature is caring about the historical characters' daily life. And the laic description of the historical characters expressed people's favor in the ordinary life and deep understanding to life in the enemy-occupied areas.Language is the hardest bond of the nation and one of the basic part of national consciousness existing. The Japanese invader's language education to different areas varies from strong to weak, which reflects their attempt to die out China. "Language colony" provoked strong reaction of the writers in enemy-occupied areas. They use the fact of writing to show their love to national language, and resist to the dominance of the colonial language. "Language colony" in enemy-occupied areas directly makes the writers there to think of the Chinese. Among which there is a discussion about whether to accept the influence of the outside language and how to deal with "new literary tune", it shows this is not only a problem of linguistic, but also a problem about national language's purity and national dignity. The writers in enemy-occupied areas made great effort to keep national language's purity, abundance and criterion, which reflects their strong national awareness.The fourth chapter analyzes the narrative syndrome under colonial ruling. The first part discusses the features of moral speech and ethic narration of enemy-occupied area literature in national crisis. First, the enemy-occupied area literature had reflected the writers' standpoint and understanding to the perseverance of the national moral courage, which indicated the majority enemy-occupied area writers shared the same understanding of the bottom line of persevering in the national moral courage. Second, the enemy-occupied area literary work veritably described the violence narration environment and demonstrated an extremely unfair social prospect from the overall. There are two characters of violence narration in the enemy-occupied area literature: a) some works demonstrated the righteousness of the revolting of violence or suppressing the violence by violence through the moral rhetoric; b) the evil of the dominant class in the enemy-occupied area would be doomed to encounter the violence retaliation, that such society inevitably would come to an end. Third, the incest narration is the portrayal of the extreme abnormality in ethic in the enemy-occupied area. The function of the incest narration lies in: a) to illustrate the lost of individual homestead; b) to care people's existence and morality; c) to portray the dreary and vacuous individual life. The moral speech and the incest narration in enemy-occupied area literature had veritably reflected the unfairness under the ruling of enemy-occupied area authority and people's disaffection towards the ruling of Japan and the puppet regime.The second part analyzed the enemy-occupied area literature's writing technique under the colonial rule. Metaphor is one of the ways to express writers' real thoughts and emotion under the brutal colonial rule and suppression in the enemy-occupied area. The comparability feature in metaphor has provided a broad expression space for the enemy-occupied area literature. In the enemy-occupied area literature, the commonly used metaphor objects include: a) historical materials. It veritably transmitted writers' purposes for writing, indirectly expressed their own sentiment and pondering to the contemporary situation with the aid of the correspondence of the images in historical text and the images in real experience. b) dreams. Literary works about dreams recurred to the uncertainty and the concealing of this metaphor object to illustrate their real experience in the brutal reality. The main referring of metaphor is various, including: first, to express the enemy-occupied area writers' national identity; second, to put forward the new proposition of existence between the miserable survival and morality; third, to reconsider and interrogate to war itself; fourth, to profoundly complain the prevalent unfortunate experience, thus to understand the origin of misery.Four chapters of the dissertation have internal relations. It takes literary works as the research target, comprehensively examining the national consciousness in them and analyzing the existence form and significance of the national consciousness in aspects as writers, the propagation path, the content and narrative features.The conclusion succinctly discussed national consciousness' changes in the enemy-occupied area literature due to the change of space and time. In space, the national consciousness showed changes as a result of the influence of the regional culture and the political pattern. As time went on, the changes of national consciousness reflected in three aspects: first, in writers' different attitude to participate in the enemy-occupied area literary arena; second, in the changing theme of enemy-occupied area literature; third, in people's changing understanding of the national destiny.