Reproduction Of Discourse-power

In the 20th century of China, between the 50's and the 70's, the novel Red Crag became the representative literature of that age, mainly because it fit into the discourse of the mainstream thinking. Upon the publication of the novel, it was immediately transformed into theatrical play, movie, opera, and many other forms of art presentation. Decades later, in the 90's of the past century, another wave of fanfare led to reproductions of the novel into new motion picture, TV play, opera, stage performance, and even video games. The progression traced the evolution of the society, from heroism in the 70's to the entertainment-centered consumption in the 90's that occurred in the Chinese society. In academia, the time-span of the transition has been termed as the"Seventeen-year Period". While in the past, the examination and research on the Seventeen-year Period have been focused on critiques from the point of view of New Marxism, history, and factual narration, the debate occurred in 1988 introduced a break-through that departed from the traditional political and social framework. Recently, integrated with the new methodological research in modern communication, journalism, editorial work and publishing, substantial opportunities emerged for studying the context of the literature, instead of the text itself. The implication of Red Crag far exceeds the literal writing of the novel - it actually sets up a platform for a dialogue among history, literature and political power, and each case of its reproduction is a re-interpretation of the original writing, both literally and figuratively, reflecting distinct view of the producer from one's unique cultural and social environment. In my research on the novel Red Crag, I plan to re-examine this work in the context of contemporary literature and social reform of the modern China, with the goal to investigate and gain insight into the interaction (both friction and tension) of the political system, the elite society, the market and the popular forms of entertainment, subsequently discover the essence and implication of the classic Seventeen-year Period. The dissertation is structured as follows:Chapter One: The Political Discourse and The Making of the Novel This chapter introduces the identity of the author, the motivation of writing the novel, the transformation of the literature, and the encapsulation of the real history that was reformatted to fit into the political slogan (of that period in the Chinese society, namely the Culture Revolution.) Then I will describe the role played by publishers, new papers and other media in advertising and glorification of this novel.Chapter Two: The Mass Discourse and the Reproduction of the Novel. This chapter will first revie w the characteristics of the literature and the various entertainment forms during the Seventeen-year Period, and examine its influence on the popularization of other novels about the history of the revolution. Then I will discuss the intersection of the form and the social function between the two, emphasizing the selection of vocabulary in the story-telling that tried to avoid political slogans. And eventually I will analyze the cause and effect of that phenomenon.Chapter Three: The Folk Lore and the Opera Jiangjie. By briefly describing the production and development of the new opera of Sister Jiang, I intend to prove that this opera is deeply rooted in the culture. The revision of the script reflected the pressure from the political environment, and explains how the episode on the revenge in the opera was revised according to the ideology of the Cultural Revolution.Chapter Four: The Intellectual Discourse and The Movie. First I will analyze the cause of the popularity of the movie about revolution and the war according to the mindset of the Seventeen-year Period. Then I will describe the traditional formality when casting a novel into a movie, which includes the development of individuals and the reflection of the social backdrop, morality and the superiority of heroism. By taking examples of move sections that include narration, proper role playing and the story line, I will elucidate the subtle difference between the left-wing literature and the literature in the liberated region under the common thinking of the Seventeen-year Period. By analyzing the movie Dream in the Hell, I will investigate the pioneering attempt on human-nature interpretation outside of the political slogan framework.Chapter Five: The Reproduction of Red Crag in a Multi-Culture Environment. I will examine the interplay of characters of the various culture and literature forces, emphasizing that under the popular culture, the characters of the TV plays and the related entertainment forms. I will identify the theme of the TV play and the difference from the original work. At the end, by taking the stage performace of Red Romance and Hua Zi Liang for example, I will explain the return of the traditional literature and style– it comes to a full circle.