Family, Revolution And Ethic Reconstruction

Perhaps nothing can be more important than family in Chinese traditional culture. As a fundamental social institution, it related individuals to state and served as a primary field where political governance and ethical cultivation were carried out. The Confucian political idea that family can be consubstantial with state and 'families regulated, states regulated' implies that the traditional institutions served as the base of Chinese traditional society and its moral civilization. But in Late Qing dynasty, the traditional family institutions was shattered. Confronted with foreign aggression and internal chaos, many Chinese modern intellectuals, e.g. Kang Youwei, began to criticize the traditional family institutions, and argued that it was traditional family institutions that bring about the weakness of state. During the May Fourth New Culture Movement, new intellectuals who were influenced by western culture even more fiercely attacked the traditional family institutions, and required to establish small family (xiao jiating) which is the imitation of western bourgeois family. As for them, the social reform should be based on the family reform. From then on, family reform is always taken as an important topic in the history of modern Chinese thought.Family is also one of the most popular themes in the history of modern Chinese literature. There are lots of works, including Lu Xun's masterpieces such as Regret for the Past, deal with the issue of family and explore into many complicated problems which are relating to love, marriage, individual, revolution and state, etc. By studing these works, we can enrich our understanding about the family discourse in modern China, and can also thoroughly grasp the spirit of modern Chinese literature.Focusing on the literature of the liberated areas (jiefang qu), this dissertation tries to analyse the literary works which are related to family issues, and thus to discuss some important questions about family, for example, what's the relation between women liberation and revolution? How does the formation of new individual subjectivity tangle with the nation-sate politics? In which way did the Chinese revolution take seminal resources from the country society's ethic and reform it, so as to gain its validity. I wish discussions about these questions would help us to explore the experiences of Chinese revolution in the terms of family on the one hand, and on the other hand, add some new vigor into the study on the literature of the liberated areas by introducing a new viewpoint.This dissertation have three chapters. Chapter one examines the discussions about family reform which were put out by modern Chinese intellectuals among whom including Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, Liang Qichao, Liu Shipei, the anarchists, the May Fourth new intellectuals, and the early Chinese communists in 1920s as well. I argue that the discourse of family reform arose in Late Qing dynasty responded to China's social crises and cultural crises, in the purpose to construct a new social regime and ethical principle by the way of reforming the family institutions.Chapter two talks about the famous woman writer Ding Ling. By closely reading some of her works, I try to outline the tough journey of Chinese women, how did they construct their individual subjectivity in the burden of family, revolution and nation-state. Some of Ding Ling's works, which were published before she came to Yan'an, depict the growth of new women who walked out of nuclear family and joined the revolution. When staying in Yan'an, Ding Ling published a serials of works which describe the female experiences thoroughly. She kept these experiences in dialogue with gender politics, family reform, revolution and nation-sate, thus gave them abundant historical connotation.Chapter three probes into the way in which revolutionary organization integrated with the country ethical relations. The redirection of women's liberation in the liberated areas after 1943, the new yangge drama movement, and Zhao Shuli's literary works, all these embodied a common theme, that is while breaking up the traditional structure of country society, the revolutionary regime also payed attention to assimilate the traditional ethical resources of country society. Infused with revolutionary ideas, the country society's ethical relations thus can be reformed in the the light of new thought. It is in this way the Chinese revolution establishes its validity.