Study On Modern Chinese Writers’ Autobiography

Autobiography concerns both literature and history.Although historicalliterature is always prosperous in China, autobiographical literature has neverreached such a level. The autobiography with modern awareness did not developuntil the20thCentury when self-consciousness aroused and western autobiographycame into China. There were two upsurges in autobiography writing in the1930sand the1980s. However, the study on autobiography has never come intoprosperity because autobiography itself is difficult to define and the relatedtheories are insufficient. There are few books and thesis about autobiography study,and the doctor’s and master’s dissertation which comprehensively discussesChinese writers’ autobiography since the20thCentury has not come into being.Therefore, this paper tries to make a comprehensive study on Chinese writers’autobiography since the20thCentury, and to bring it into the Modern Chinaacademic field. Modern China and Ancient China coexist, covering modern andcontemporary periods. The paper includes six parts.First, autobiography and modern China are defined in the Introduction part.This paper takes Lejeune’s definition of autobiography as its scope of autobiography discussion, and at the same time brings memoirs into research.Besides, the discussion also involves diaries and written criticisms, which to someextent have become reference texts for quasi-autobiography. Especially from the1950s to the1970s, autobiography was badly deficient. So the discussion aboutthese quasi-autobiographies is useful for the survey of autobiography developinghistory in the20thCentury. The paper also analyses the current situation of theautobiography theory and creation study. The prosperity of autobiography creationand the deficiency of study achievements bring both difficulties and challenges forautobiography study.Chapter One, Study on Modern Chinese Writers’ Autobiography, exposes thedeveloping history of Modern Chinese writers’ autobiography, and divides it intofour periods. From1927to1937, it was a flourishing period for Modern Chinesewriters’ autobiography. In this part, the paper mainly analyses the reasons andcharacteristics of the autobiography writing climax appearing in the1930s. From1937to1949, Modern Chinese writers’ autobiography was on the decline. In thispart, the paper discusses the reasons for the decline and the phenomenon of manyautobiographies’ republication. Actually, there were still a large number of peoplereading autobiography at that time. The differences between males and females in creating autobiography are also exposed in this part. During this period, the maleautobiography focused on the transformation from individual to community. Yetthe female autobiography was more individual, focusing on individualemancipation and marriage liberty which had began to be written from the1930s.From1949to1978, Modern Chinese writers’ autobiography was lacking. We canhardly see any official edition of autobiography. So the paper discusses a fewdiaries and written criticisms as quasi-autobiography. The autobiography is dividedinto three kinds----positive identification of history, such as Gaoyubao, negativeidentification of history, such as The bullpen diary and confession, such as1957diary of Guoxiaochuan.Therefore, the integrity of the autobiography history isguaranteed. From1978to nowadays, it is another golden time for autobiographydevelopment. The reasons, characteristics, and weak points of autobiography’sbooming again are expounded in this part.Chapter Two is Study on Biographees’ Identity. In this chapter, the paper talksabout the construction and identification of biographee’s self-image, therelationship between the presetting of the biographee identity and theautobiography’s authenticity, and the relationship between the presetting of thebiographee identity and readers’ reading expectations. Identity is one’s value and importance in other people’s eyes. All the autobiographies include authors’self-explanation and self-exploration in others and in the society. So autobiographyis not a flat mirror. It cannot become a pure reflection of the biographee’s life. Allthe biographee images would have some changes in autobiographies. Butbiographee portraying is based on the presetting of the biographee identity. In thischapter, the relationship is discussed first between the presetting of the biographeeidentity and the exploration of self-identification. The so-called “presetting of thebiographee identity” is the biographee’s expectation about his or her uniquenessand social status. An autobiography is to some degree a concrete product of thepresetting of the biographee’s identity. Through molding the biographee identity,the writer obtains the biographee’s identification with his individual, his socialgroup, and his nation, so that the sense of belonging is acquired. Conflict betweenthe biographee’s self-presetting and the society can endow the autobiography withidentification crisis and identity anxiety, either individual or national. The secondpart is about Modern Chinese writers’ presetting of biographee identity andautobiography’s authenticity. The obscurity, exaggeration and defense inautobiography are discussed from the angle of presetting of the biographee identity.The autobiography’s authenticity is a basic issue in autobiography study. But the traditional authenticity study only focuses on the investigation of the history. Inthis paper, the new angle of identity is adopted, and the point that all of thebiographee’s obscurity, exaggeration and defense depend on the construction of thebiographee’s identity is analyzed. If facts make against the construction, thebiographee will obviously avoid them, while if facts are helpful for theconstruction, the biographee will spare no efforts to state them. Of course, there aresome historical facts concerning other people or the society that the author cannotdirectly avoid, but defend himself against. Therefore, what to say and how to say itare closely related to the biographee’s identity presetting. Section Three is aboutmodern Chinese writers’ biographee identity presetting and readers’ readingexpectation. Readers’ degree of satisfaction is analyzed from the angle of identity.In the common circumstances, a reader knows something about the biographee.His cognitive “pre-understanding” becomes his reading expectation. If the author’sstatement of facts cannot satisfy the reader’s expectation, the reader will ask for anexplanation; if the writer’s statement conforms to the reader’s expectation, andeven beyond it, closeness and confidence will be formed from shocking andadmiration between the reader and the author. Therefore, whether an autobiography is good or not does not depend on the content, but on the degree ofthe author’s frankness.Chapter Three, Study on Modern Chinese Writers’ Autobiographic narration,mainly discusses the unique autobiographical narration. From the unreliability, thedialogism and the narrativity in narration, the paper expounds the features ofautobiography. In the first section, the unreliable narration of the modern writer’sautobiography primarily refers to the theoretical achievements coming from TheRhetoric of Fiction of Booth and Xu Dejin’s Autobiography narratology, whichexplores three unreliable narrations: One is the information gap within the text;The second is the text’s ambiguity; And the third is the information gap of theautobiography genre. In the part of the third, it tells the relationship betweenautobiography and fiction as well as the amphibious characteristics in some texts.In the second section, the dialogism of modern writer’s autobiography discusses thesignificance of dialogism to autobiography. The dialogues in autobiography areclassified into four kinds. One is characters’ dialogues in autobiography, which canheighten the atmosphere of the scenes, make the autobiography believable and thesense of autobiography’s reality, and help the biographee express different ideas.The second are dialogues between the narrating subject and the experienced subject. There are some retrospective narrations in autobiography. Although thenarrating subject and the experienced subject are the same person, differences stillexist. The narrating subject often makes inquiries, comments, and reflections to theexperienced subject in a more sensible state. Thus, a kind of tension is produced bytheir cognitive differences and dialogues between them come out. The third aredialogues between the writer and reader. The fourth are dialogues between theinterviewer and the interviewee in the oral autobiography. Oral autobiography is aspecial type of autobiography. The existence of interviewer and intervieweeendows autobiography with double narrating subjects. The differences betweentheir recognitions result in dialogism and narrative tension. Autobiography needsnarrativity. The stories in autobiography are real and arranged orderly, both aboutthe biographee himself and about others. Although the trend of contemporarywestern autobiography creation is to get rid of narrativity, the memory will lost itsoriginal appearance once formed in the text. Therefore, trying to restore thememory can only be a useless attempt. In order to note down the past, it isinevitable to select important events in one’s life according to the meaning of lifeand the need of identity construction. So practically, abandoning the narrativity ofautobiography is unnecessary and impossible. Chapter Four, Study on the Themes of Modern Chinese writer’sAutobiography, mainly discusses three basic themes. The first theme is love andmarriage. In this part the differences in choosing love and marriage between malewriters and female writers are discussed based on autobiographical texts.Compared with male writers who have maternal influences and yield to traditionalmarriages, female writers are more rebellious. Of course, female writers have toface a new kind of confusion coming from patriarchy to the power of husbandwhen getting married successfully. The second theme is reflection. Severaldifferent kinds of reflection are analyzed in this part. One is reflection onindividuals, including both on others and on oneself which includes repentance.The other is reflection on groups, including both on victims of anti-rightistmovement to the Cultural Revolution Group and on Red Guard to Educated Youthgroup. From this section, we can see the intellectual’s reliance on the system andpower, their loss of self-independence, and the violence and cruelty they showamong the mobs. The third theme is inspiration. Autobiography is sometimesencouraging and optimistic. The biographees are hard working and have greatsignificance as life models. The conclusion mainly discusses three problems. The first one is Chinesewriters’ viewpoint of tradition. Three viewpoints of tradition are exposed based onthe writers’ creative intention: complete confession, telling the truthunconditionally without any concealment; respecting others’ privacy much morethan the facts, which should be respected, but are not as important as privacy;choosing whether to speak or not according to individual’s requirements. Thesecond one is about the autobiography’s literary and historical value: to providebackground information for the writers’ life study; to form an intertextual studywith the literary works of the writers; to provide the evidence for the research ofthe history of modern literature and to provide circumstantial evidence for theevaluation of others. Besides, it tells the literary value of the autobiography,including the distinctive characters, the description of the scenery, the participationof literary imagination and the application of the writing skills. The third problemis the lack of autobiography creation. It contains the loss of sexual writing, theweakness of reflection, and the missing of emotional description of the reflectionsubjects.Although there are a lot of unsatisfactory aspects existing both in creation andresearch of the modern Chinese writers’ autobiography, it is no doubt that the autobiography possesses great potentials to survive and develop. With theconstruction and development of theories of Chinese autobiography, it is bound tousher in a new golden age.