Land Issues In Contemporary Novels

In China’s practice of founding modern nation-state, the land issue is undoubtedly the most important. As a result of such significance, three large-scale social movements, distinct from one another, were developed successively centering on the modernization of China in20century:the land reform movement from1946to1952, the agricultural collectivization movement from early1950s to mid-1980s, and the contract responsibility system linking remuneration to output implemented from late1970s until now. Those great social movements that moulded modern China are faithfully recorded and reflected by Chinese literature in the forms of "local literature" and "rural themes’"("land-reform novels" and "cooperative transformation novels"), different in ways of expression and historical connotation. Worth mentioning, with the social transformation since1980s, land-reform novels and cooperative transformation novels that valued in contemporary Chinese literature are confronted with formulaic interpretation in the tide of re-writing literary history. Actually, this is just an interpretation of the new ideology, which is bound to be developed along with the extension of China’s modern practices and its modernity.Focusing on the land-reform novels and cooperative transformation novels, the thesis tries to unscramble the land reform and agricultural collectivization movements in the circumstance of modern practices of China in20th century, liberate the energy of those two social movements causally correlated, get rid of the onefold ideology perspective and revaluate the art and social value of land-reform and cooperative transformation novels. In view of the above, the prodrome mainly presents the occurrence of land-reform novels and cooperative transformation novels as well as the evolution of its evaluation, and sorts out on this basis the entire historical progress of China’s modernization in20century so as to pave the way for rediscovering land reform and agricultural collectivization movements and the works related.The first, second and third chapters target the land issue that emerged in land reform movement and its literary expression. The first chapter reveals the trauma of mental slavery brought by the old land ownership proceeding from the work The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River by Ding Ling, and the treatment of such trauma by land reform as well as its primary effect. The second chapter takes Zhou Libo’s work The Hurricane for example, to introduce the violence that took place in land reform movement and its roots, and further traces author’s expression tactics for unfolding violence and its insufficiency. The third one analyzes the influence of land reform on people’s life, especially the spiritual life, basing on The Swing and Folk Song by Sun Li, and the cause and consequence of creating new personalities in Sun Li’s land-reform novels.Land reform is a great "millennium movement", but its negative influence was also emerged while it benefited rural areas of China, so the agricultural collectivization would be the choice. The fourth, fifth and sixth chapters mainly study the evolution logic of agricultural collectivization movement. The fourth chapter analyzes the modern rural planning caused by agricultural collectivization from Zhao Shuli’s work Sanli Bay. The fifth begins with The History of Entrepreneurship by Liu Qing and tries to work out the portraits of modern farmers that appeared in agricultural collectivization. The sixth explores the modern history consciousness nurtured in agricultural collectivization through the work Sunny Day by Hao Ran, and summarizes the achievements and cause of failure of agricultural collectivization.Starting in19th century, China may still need to go through a long period in21st century to find a relatively ideal modernization scheme. While the birth of this scheme requires the positive elements of all the previous movements instead of any negative ones. In virtue of this, combining the rural practice of modernization and its literary expression since the new period and corresponding to the rural status before land reform, the concluding part of the thesis looks back on the land reform and agricultural collectivization movements in a relatively integral view, and concerns the art and social value of land-reform novels and cooperative transformation novels.