| The modern writers went through the tides of history in over 30 years: the ups and downs of the May 4th Movement, the great revolution, the arduous Anti-Japanese War, and the Civil War. The establishment of New China in 1949 marked another turning point in their lives and career. The founding of the People's Republic of China and the ruling of the Communist Party were an unprecedented historical transformation for all those who had accepted the knowledge of modern country system since May 4th, including the intellectuals. The then middle-aged modern writers made great efforts to adjust to the changes in both environment and themselves: from changes in their own identity, status and lives all the way up to changes in the social system and environment, and the adjustment in literary publishing regulations. Therefore, their career and lives were divided into two distinguishing parts. In this thesis, I choose five writers to analyse: Ding Ling, Zhao Shuli, Mao Dun, Lao She and Shen Chongwen, focusing on the development and changes of their writing in relation to the whole career. Based on individual analysis, I endeavor to discuss the achievements and lessons of modern writers after the founding of the PRC, and to ponder on the enlightenment they brought to us.Ding Ling was one of the female writers who entered the literature world during the May 4th Movement. Compared with the short-lived career of her contemporary female writers, she never gave up writing until the end of her life. Over her 60-year writing career, she brought great impact and amazement to the Chinese modern and contemporary literature, even international literature. The Diary of Ms. Saffi, one of her early works, impacted greatly on literature world in the late 1920s. In the 1930s her novel Water marked a turning point to left-wing literature, a magnificent event in both her career and the history of literature, bringing her to the limelight. In 1936, Ding Ling went to the front and Yan'an, determined to devote herself to the revolution. With a further understanding of the life in Yan'an, her later works In the Hospital and About Women's Day revealed her change from early excitement to a deep reflection and severe criticism of the society. After the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Ding Ling reflected deeply on her previous works and thoughts, and went through an utter transformation of her literary views and writing style, resulting in the writing of Tian Baolin and the Sun Shining on the Shanggan River.After 1949,her wish to be devoted in professional writing failed, and Ding Ling became a cadre occupied with administrative affairs. The last 7 years of her life after the Cultural Revolution were full of unrest and disturbance. The weather-beaten Ding Ling preferred such inspiring works as Du Wanxiang to the dispirited "scar literature". She wrote proses, memoirs and essays, and started the literary journal China. Her political stance was changed from the right-wing to the left-wing, the argument about which filled her last days with hardship. Ding Ling was gong forever, while people's discussion about her life and career was still going on.Zhao Shuli lived a life of ups and downs: he rose from obscurity, gained great fame, and then faded away. His overnight fame was closely connected with Mao Zedong's Address On Literature And Art. The Yan'an literary circle aimed to set Zhao as a model of local writers, the pragmatic nature of which hid the fact that the novel Xiao Erhei Gets Married had been written before Mao's address. This inevitably put the famous Zhao Shuli in embarrassment. Facing the new environment after 1949, he was hesitant to write for three years or so. Corresponding to the official appeal, he once attempted to change the theme of his novels from the lives of farmers to that of workers, but in vain. His long novel Sanliwan reflected the movement of collectivization in rural China, which renewed his reputation. Thereafter, Zhao's career saw a short boom, embellishing his old works and writing new ones to reflect the reality. Zhao Shuli lived as a farmer himself, empathizing with the farmers and concerning himself with the life and interests of them. His love for farmers and anxiety about the rural situation urged him to go beyond his identity as a writer and to participate actively in politics, writing the ten-thousand-word proposal My Opinion about How Commune Should Lead Rural Production. His behaviors seemed pedantic and feeble in the complicated political movements. So he lamented that he was a saint among farmers but a fool among intellectuals. In the Cultural Revolution, he was criticized as a counterrevolutionary writer against Mao Zhedong's Yan 'an Address, and was tortured to death.Mao Dun was a productive writer before the founding of the PRC, who had been lost and depressed after the May 4th Movement. Later he turned from the research of literary theories to literary writing. From the trilogy of Shi all the way to Midnight, Mao Dun's thoughts and writing advanced with the time and became increasingly mature in artistic form. During the anti-Japanese war and the liberation war, Mao Dun grew to be sympathetic to the Communist Party. He carried on with the work of literature in the areas ruled by Kuomintang. Hardened by the hard life and turbulent situation there, he wrote novels such as Corruption and Exercises to depict the historical events in the anti-Japanese war.On the eve of the founding of New China, Mao Dun's writing was suspended. He went up to the liberated areas in the north. After the self-criticism of the faults and defects of art and literature in Kuomintang-ruled areas at the first Congress of Art and Literature, he was appointed as the first Minister of Culture of the New China. The title of minister, the new age, and the new literary rules left Mao Dun at sea about how to write. Anxious about his disappearing inspiration, Mao Dun attempted to resume writing in several cases, but failed. The writing dream of the "Cultural Minister" ended up in vain, his novels after 1949 amounting to little. He pondered over the literary issues and expressed his personal feelings in the forms of literary critical articles, theoretical articles and archaism poetry. In the late Cultural Revolution, ungratified with the idle life, he decided to write a sequel to his previous novel Autumn Maple Leaves as red as the February Flowers secretly, which was not completed. In his last years after the Cultural Revolution, he seized the day to write the memoir My Past Way, which left lots of valuable historical materials to the later generations. At the end of his life, Mao Dun looked back on his own life and dictated two letters to express his appeals and wishes. One letter signed with Shen Yanbing was sent to the Central Committee of the Party, pleading with them to examine his merits and demerits in life, and to recognize him posthumously as a party member. The other letter signed with Mao Dun was addressed to the Association of Writers, donating his 250-thousand remuneration as a literary fund for long novels.Compared with the revolutionary writer Ding Ling, classic writer Zhao Shu Li, and progressive writer Mao Dun, Lao She and Shen Chongwen,the liberalist writers, underwent dramatic changes in their thoughts around the founding of the PRC.Lao She's writing career originated from overseas. In 1924, he went to teach in the Oriental College, London University. Alone in a foreign country and stricken by home-sickness and loneliness, he decided to take up pen and began writing like his friend Xu Dishan. Twenty years later at the founding of the PRC, Lao She was still far away in America and he didn't come back until a couple of months afterwards. Lao She quickly gained popularity with the new government. He held several administrative posts, wrote productively and received wide reputation. His dramatic work Dragon Beard Ditch won him the honorable title of "the people's writer", and Teahouse marked the peak of his writing career.The change of Lao She's literary thoughts after 1949 was similar to that from his return to China in 1930 to the anti-Japanese war. When he came back from overseas, Lao She decided to abandon his humorous style in such novels as the Philosophy of Lao Zhang, Zhao Zi Said..., and Two Ma's, to adjust to the reality in China. His Crescent Moon and Luotuo Xiangzi finally marked the success of his realist writing and the peak of his novel writing. At the beginning of anti-Japanese war, he took up some popular literary forms, for instance, Guci, local operas, and cross talk. He also wrote many dramatic works to support the anti-Japanese war. He came to be discontented with the "worthless" utilitarian writing since 1941. He thought about the return from wartime propaganda to literature itself, and from dramatic writing to novels. Undiscouraged by the failure of his long novel Cremation, and inspired by his wife's description of the life in Beijing and his own memory of Beijing, he produced his most classic novel Four Generations Under One Roof. Apparently, Lao She attached great importance to productivity, which was the basic element underlying his writing for fun, completing political tasks of utilitarian propaganda, and two turnings from novels to dramatic writing. The two turnings demonstrated his discontent with mere productivity and his pursuit of artistic value.At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he commited suicide jumping into the lake, no longer able to endure the insult of the red guards. His death drew intense and enduring attention from both home and abroad, owing to its distinctive meaning and value. Several months later,his death was reported abroad and lamented by many writers and scholars. Over the Cultural Revolution,the fact of Lao She's death was once concealed and even twisted. Whereas, it became the center of attention in the academic circle of the new age,and saw friutful consequences as a research subject. It also entered other writers' literary works, for example, the dramatic writing The Death of Lao She by Su Shiyang and the novel The Blazing Sun in August by Wang Zengqi. As a writer, Sheng Chongwen the "countryman" stuck to the attitude of "avoiding politics", but he kept being involved in politics. For years Sheng had been criticized by both the left-wing and the right-wing. On the eve of the founding of the PRC, faced with the competition of the Communist Party and Kuomintang, he finally chose to stay in the mainland after a severe inner struggle. The dicision was based on his firm confidence to make a living by writing as well as his consideration for the welfare of his children and family. Though prepared for the worst consequence of being killed, the deterioration of the situation was still beyond him. Anxiety, stress and confusion were driving him so crazy that he attempted to commit suicide. Having calmed down, in 1949 he decided to get away from the literary world to take up the research of cultural relics. But he still kept a close eye on literature and sometimes even resume writing. Jeopardized by his previous trauma and the dilemma in career, he never retrieved the inspiration of writing. Fortunately, his research of cultural relics made up for the regret and left valuable achievements to later generations.As modern writers, Ding Ling, Zhao Shuli, Mao Dun, Lao She and Shen Chongwen are unique as well as common, serving as models of various thoughts and writing styles of modern writers after 1949. The writers who went to Yan'an and other liberated areas in the anti-Japanese war all went through such a typical mental process: excitement, sense of loss, confession and rehabilitation. Through the Yan'an Rectification Movement, many writers were utterly transformed to become part of the power of art and literature in liberated areas. Many writers who had stayed outside the liberated areas began to undergo a transformation of mind and writing from 1949. Before the founding of the new power, liberal intellectuals and writers were filled with uncertainty and anxiety towards the Communist Party. Having thought twice, some of them chose to went to Taiwan, others went abroad with a heavy heart, but even more of them decided to stay and be devoted to the new age. Since 1949, a variety of writers gathered in the new era and set out on a new journey of life. Many writers in liberated areas became "old cadres" and leaders in the new China's cultural cause. Though some of the writers in Kuomintang-ruled area were also welcomed and put in important positions,they felt so unrest and uncertain that they kept carrying on self-criticism. From the enforcement of the extreme left politics to the Cultural Revolution, the hierarchical system of writers gradually disappeared, resulting in their common desperate situation. Great discrepancy were witnessed between the modern writers after 1949. There were unproductive writers such as Ding Ling and Mao Dun, productive writers such as Lao She, and "rehabilitated" writers such as Shen Chongwen and Qian Zhongshu. Apart from these varieties, they also shared common points in denying and devising their old works, and leaving unfinished works. The career and life of each individual writer may develop by chance, but what happened to the writers as a whole after 1949 had infinite inevitability. In general, the modern writers' work after 1949 proved unfruitful, which were caused by various elements connected not only with the social and literary environment after 1949, but also with the weakness of the writers' mind and character. To sort out the development of modern writers' thoughts and writing, we need to gain a deeper understanding of the writers, their works and even the history of literature. Furthermore, we have to summarize and absorb their experiences and lessons, so as to use them for reference in the present and future literature.Restricted by many factors, such as knowledge, social experience, I can't master this topic well .There may well be some drawbacks in the thesis. However, I believe, under the research passion ,courage and hardwork, my thesis may be helpful to advance this topic.
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