On The Cultural Psychology In Xu Xu's Fictions

Xu Xu was a writer with unique personality in the history of the 20th century Chinese literature, and his fictions were particularly outstanding. He was very famous in the 1930s and 1940s Chinese literature, and continued to write a lot of fictions since 1950 he settled in Hong Kong, and wrote a total of more than 5 million characters of novels in the writing career nearly half a century. Xu Xu's fictions have its unique romantic pursuit of the aesthetic, and the strong psychoanalysis features and the distinctive religious consciousness, and obtain the cultural character of transcending the times. Inspecting the reasons why Xu Xu's fictions have its unique aesthetic and cultural implication, we have to analyze the causes from two following aspects: one is the cultural influence he experienced as a individual, the other is his personality. In view of this, we introduce the concept of "cultural psychology" to apply the theory perspective of cultural psychology to the literary study on Xu Xu's fictions, and to discuss the constraint and impact on Xu Xu's literary creation made by his personal cultural behavior accomplishment, and to discuss how the historical and cultural context and real-life experience effect on Xu Xu's personal choice in the collision of Chinese and Western cultures, and to discuss the individual psychological reaction of Xu Xu who is as an individual member how to restrict and impact his fictions, which comes into being in the historical and cultural context of the acute collision and conflict between Chinese and Western cultures and in the historical process of modernization transformation of Chinese culture. In this paper, we use the contemporary Western literary criticisms to analyse the cultural psychology in Xu Xu's fictions: such as the cultural psychological criticism, the psychoanalysis criticism, and the feminist criticism. This thesis focuses on the aesthetic tastes, thinking, and religious consciousness in Xu Xu's fictions and reviews its impact and performance in Xu Xu's fictions made by the cultural psychological factors. In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, the dissertation is divided into four chapters.The introduction sums up the academic study on Xu Xu in nearly half a century, and discusses the significance of the article. It defines the concept of "cultural psychology" and introduces "cultural psychology" to discourse upon the cultural psychology feature including the aesthetic tastes, thinking and religious consciousness in Xu Xu's fictions under the common action of the external cultural context and his intrinsic personality.Chapter one discusses Xu Xu's personal choice in the collision of Chinese and Western cultures and the constraint and impact on Xu Xu's fictions made by his individual "cultural psychology" under the common action of the historical and cultural context and his real-life experiences. The process in which the writers receive cultural impact includes the multiple factors consciously and unconsciously, and cultural constraint and psychological reaction are closely linked as a whole, and the spiritual world of the authors is rich and profound. Only if we restore to the historical and cultural environment that impacts on the writer to make specific analysis, we can grasp deeply the writers' aesthetic psychology and spiritual tone, and we can make a reasonable interpretation and accurate evaluation to the overall cultural values of the writers' literatures. Any writer is a product of culture, Xu Xu was no exception. Xu Xu was an intellectual during the modernization transition of Chinese culture period, not only he was impacted by the Chinese traditional culture and had a deep "Traditional Culture Complex", but also he experienced the baptism of modern Western civilization and had distinctive modern consciousness. With the impact of Chinese classical literary and cultural tradition and his idealism personality, he inherited the non-utilitarian concept of pure literary aesthetics which the pinnacle of the classical fictions, The Dream of the Red Chamber is on behalf of, and his fictions present an unrealistic color. The "inward turn" tendency of literature under the influence of Western non-rational trend of thought corresponds to Xu Xu's introspective personality and meets Xu Xu's desire to be keen about exploring the secretive inner world, and makes Xu Xu's fictions with a strong psychoanalysis color. The religious and cultural factors contained in eastern and western cultures train Xu Xu's religious sensation, and the Buddhist vacant wisdom and the Christian spirit of caritas and sacrifice have penetrated into the Xu Xu's personal thinking, which makes Xu Xu's fictions show distinct religious consciousness.Chapter two focuses on the non-utilitarian aesthetic pursuit in Xu Xu's fictions which impacted by the Chinese traditional of classical literature: the Complex of The Dream of the Red Chamber. The Dream of the Red Chamber is the summit of Chinese classical literature, and it has infiltrated the Chinese culture and become a part of the Chinese traditional culture, and it makes important effect on the formation of Xu Xu's personality and aesthetic cultural psychology. The unrealistic color and vacant poetic bourn, the artistic performance of the spiritual love surpassing commonplace between Bao and Dai, the shaping of a group of naive and beautiful female images which the writers endowed with their ideal of love and beauty, the spoony life-state of female, and the description of the tragical fate of leaving or death of the heroes after the entanglement of love in the earthly world in The Dream of the Red Chamber were all inherited by Xu Xu and were presented in his fictions.Chapter three focuses on analyzing the psychoanalysis color in Xu Xu's fictions from the effect on Xu Xu of modern Western literary and artistic trend. Since the 20th century, modern Western non-rational thought which was represented by the psychoanalysis and Humanism philosophy began to explore deeply the covert inner world of human being, and elicited the "inward turn" tendency of literature. Xu Xu was affected by this thought, and he consciously made his fictions inflood into the literary trend. That the non-rational thought attaches importance to the inner spiritual world corresponds to Xu Xu's introspective personality of being keen about exploring the inner world. Xu Xu enjoyed Bergson's Philosophy of Life and Freud's Psychoanalysis Theory, he profited from the enlighten and influence of Philosophy of Life and Freud's Psychoanalysis Theory in many aspects, such as the attention to lives, the exploring to the humanity and the secretive inner world in his fictions. If the complex of The Dream of the Red Chamber in Xu Xu's fictions embodies Xu Xu's literary pursuit of inheriting the non-utilitarian concept of pure literary aesthetics in the Chinese classical literature to express his ideals of love and beauty, the psychoanalysis color in Xu Xu's Fictions is that he brings Freud's Psychoanalysis Theory into his fictions and use psychoanalysis as the golden key to enter the secretive inner world, and to describe the conflict of the individual life between the instinct eros and morality, and to explore the possibility of love and happiness in the contradictions between meeting people's instinctive desire and maintaining social order of civilization.Chapter four discusses the religious consciousness in Xu Xu's fictions. Xu Xu is a writer with religious sentiment, the ultimate concern to the spiritual world of mankind of religion corresponds to Xu Xu's idealism of the persistent pursuit for the meaning of life. Any one who thinks about the ultimate meaning of human existence will eventually be converted to the ultimate spiritual directions of religions. The Oriental Buddhist culture and the Western Christian culture are the two major religious culture which effect on the Chinese intellectuals since the "May 4th". Although there is a trend of conflict and confrontation between the Buddhism and the Christianity because they belong to different cultural systems, there is a trend of interoperability and amalgamation between the Buddhism and the Christianity in the spiritual dimensions of ultimate concern. The Buddhism and the Christianity both believe that the survival in the earthly world is full of suffering and accordingly put forward to their ideals to save the world and surpass the survival suffering. Xu Xu was a new type of intellectuals in modern china, and he was deeply affected by the Buddhism thinking, and he appreciated Christianity that is on behalf of the Western cultural traditions very much. Xu Xu not only agreed that the Buddhism regards vacancy, suffering and impermanence as the understanding to life, but also appreciated the Christian spirit of caritas and sacrifice. There is a compatible cultural tendency in his fictions. Conclusion discusses the significance of Xu Xu's literature with unique aesthetic pursuit and independent character to the history of the 20th century Chinese literature, through analyzing the basic contradiction between the aesthetic value and utility value of literature in the process of the modernization transformation of the 20th century Chinese literature. Xu Xu provided the fictions with unique aesthetic experience and beyond the utilitarian to the 20th century Chinese literature with his rich achievements. In the 20th century of the changing times, Xu Xu always adhered to the literary position of liberalism, and disposed properly the relationship of utilitarian value and aesthetic value of the literature, and did not depend on any party, and pursued the aesthetic and independent character of literature. It is the most important reason why his fictions have the cultural character of transcending the times.