Literary Representation Of Urbanization

The process of urbanization since the1990s has a profound influence on the politics, economy, culture, and many other fields of Chinese society. In the context of market economy, the re-construction of urban and rural networks in geography, the breakings, divisions, and re-groupings of the social original structures, and the mutual rivals between the traditional culture and the modern one are the cause and effect of the development and changes of cities marked with increasing machines. As the development of urbanization and globalization bear fruits, there also comes the completion of the primitive accumulation of capital and the differentiation of social hierarchy, the destruction of the environment and the emergence of the vulnerable groups. Many problems in daily life as well as in urban and rural societies, and the alienation during the process of modernization, are closely related with the process of urbanization. Therefore, the urbanization undoubtedly is the key to understanding contemporary China.As a unique social practice, there exists a complicated relationship between the novels in the new century and the urbanization of contemporary China. The complicated relationship embodied in a two-way mutual construction is the novels in the new century shaped by urbanization and the urbanization represented by the novels of the new century. Instead of comprehensively expanding the analysis of the mutual construction to the urbanization and the novels in the new century, the paper explores relationship between the actual urbanization and the imagination of the urbanization, studies the spatial urbanization and the personal urbanization in the text, and analyzes the complicated expression of the function of power and capital, by studying the urban and rural spatial population and capital flow, urban geography and landscape remodeling, and the changes in urban daily life. The paper believes that, the relationship between "the juxtaposition of old and new" in the process of urbanization and moral aesthetic prosperity in the novels of the new century, as well as the overflow of consumption aesthetics and the relationship choosing other forms of aesthetics, represents the contemporary writers’ complicated cultural states of mind, which include restlessness, hesitation, resistance and escape. It is a kind of tension between the tradition and the modern age, the globalization and localization. The achievements and the weaknesses of the new century novels, are exactly the representation of the tension between the contemporary writers’ imaginative urbanization and the urbanization in the new century novels.The paper mainly consists of three parts, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. IntroductionThis part explains the key concepts such as "the new century novels","the urbanization","the city and literature", and also defines the text scope and the object. And then, on the theoretical foundation of some foreign countries, it states China’s literature study on cities. Finally, it explains the significance, the values and the paper’s logical structure.The main body comprises4chapters. Firstly, the present author summarizes the two-way mutual construction between the urbanization and the new century novels. Then, from the changes in urban and rural spaces, the changes in landscape and the changes in daily life, the author studies the writings of the social transformation and cultural changes in the new century novels, and, he also studies the relationship between the writings and the choices of the aesthetic forms.Chapter One The New Century Novels and their Representation of UrbanizationThe chapter summarizes the literary expression of the urbanization in the new century novels from two aspects. The first section discusses the two-way mutual construction between the urbanization and the new century novels. Firstly, it introduces the shaping of the new century novels in the process of the urbanization, and then it explains the function of the social practice in the new century novels from its writings to the process of urbanization and to the changes of the urban historical geography in the present period. The second section generalizes the urban discourses of the new century novels and its cultural resources. It analyzes several modes of expression in the new century novels, and narrates its cultural borrowing resources.Chapter Two Urbanization:Spatial Politics in the Urban and Rural Areas of the New Century NovelsOn the basis of spatial theories, this chapter studies how the wrings between the space-person and the urbanization in the spatial politics are expressed in the narrative modes such as under-stratum narration, enter-city narration and rural space narration in the process of urbanization. The first section is called the dislocation between the gap space and moral aesthetics. The author, from a sociological point of view, expounds the gap space and its characteristics, gap space in the new century novels and the bottom existence of the people, and further the author explores the mode of a kind rural narration and its defects. The second section is concerning a kind of imagination which reconstructs the city space in "Soilless Times". It analyzes the imagination and reconstruction of the city space in Soilless Times and other novels of the new century, it also explores the cultural roots of the imagination. The third section studies rural spatial narrative and its significance. Based on Lakes and Mountains, it analyzes how the rural space is shaped by the city capital, the rural power and commercial capital in conspiracy in the process, and also studies the reflection of the urbanization and the touch on the deep-layer structures of rural society.Chapter Three Landscape:The Illusions of the City in the New Century NovelsBy using the landscape theory, this chapter studies the writings of the urban geographical space in the new century novels. It focuses on what has happened in the process of urbanization of the city landscape, and on how the city landscape is shaped by power and capital. Finally, it analyzes the urban spectacle narration and its aesthetic features. In the first section, the urban geographical space in the new century novels, makes an analysis of the city landscape concentrating on urban streets, buildings and regions. The second section, the present author studies the production of city landscape. With The Waste City, Lay Down Your Arms, The Spell of Forbes, as the examples of city landscape, by the exploration of the origins and features of landscape that are written in the novels of the new century, the author also studies the operation of power and capital in the production of city landscape. The third section studies the spectacle narratives and their aesthetic features, and further analyzes its misunderstanding in writing.Chapter four Dailization:City Life in the New Century NovelsThe chapter studies the city writing of the new century novels by the daily life theories. On the basis of the changes of people’s daily lives, it analyzes the deep influences on the daily life brought by cultural hybridity in the urbanization. The first section studies daily life constructed by modern culture, it examines the invasion in daily consumption activity, daily activities and daily concepts activity caused by technical rationality. The second section is about degradation and absurd. It describes the absurd experiences of city people during the period of social transformation, such as numbness and apathy, coolness. The third section studies the strategies of resistance in new century novels and the crisis of the daily life narrative. It explores the resisting homogenization and escaping from cities in the new century novels, and further analyses its insufficiency of daily life narration in the new century novels.Conclusion, the Urbanization and the New Century Literary ImaginationIn this part, the present author studies the reality of the cultural chaos in the new century novels expressed by urbanization. It explores the levels, achievements written in the new century novels, and the three losses:lack of experience of city writing, the absence of aesthetic characters and the deficiency of critical strength.