"The Son Of People" And "the Barren Hero"-on Zhang Chengzhi

In Chinese contemporary literary arena, Zhang Chengzhi is a unique writerbecause of his unquenchable idealism. Glance through the writer’s general lifetime,there’s no difficult for us to find out that, behind the idealism, Zhang Chengzhi has avery special life experience. During the Great Cultural Revolution, he is the inventorof the word “Red Guard”, and also one of the Educated youths go and work in thecountryside; after the Great Cultural Revolution, he is among the first intellectualswho received graduate education, meanwhile he is a frequent winner in literary circleslike a dark horse; since1990s, he is——a free-lance writer who drop all the publicemployment and walk around the Arab world, a believer of Jahariyah version ofIslam, and a Third World internationalist who firmly criticizes the new imperialisthegemony. But besides the acknowledged idealism, enormous controversy related toZhang Chengzhi never comes to an end for the past two decades. Except theparanoid，radical and arrogant on writing style and temper, the maker of people’smyth, the dangerous nationalists, the advocate of moral Utopia, the cultural absolutistsand fundamentalist, terrorist related to Islam…… all of these are the culturaljudgement that laid upon Zhang Chengzhi.It is not easy to discriminate the relationship between these identity labels andZhang Chengzhi’s writings and thoughts, it’s involved much more than the personalwritings of the writer himself. The incisive controversy represents the thoughtconflicting which tear up by the social upheaval, it’s concerning——the position andstandpoint of the knowledge in a polarized society, how to handle the new massacre,oppress and the sacrifice, resistance in the post-cold war international system, whatfuture path will China choose under the overlap of the rising country power and theinternal and external problems; at the same time, behind these realistic propositions,there’re still lurking the different attitudes toward the Socialism historical practice of China and the revolutions in the whole Third World, including the review to thecontemporary literature and the ideology and culture context of the past thirty years.Today approach and talk about Zhang Chengzhi again is undoubtedly very hard, butthe very elements on literature, ideology, history and reality which make ZhangChengzhi became a difficulty, indicate his significance.This thesis attempts to penetrate into the difficulty, in order to do more completeand more ground-breaking research. Since his arise in the literature world in1978,Zhang Chengzhi put forward the purpose of “for the people”, this writing principletogether with the identity consciousness of “the son of people” were undoubtedly theimportant supports which helped him to build up the literature foundation, but sincethe turn between1980s and1990s, stimulations from social reality and the currentsituation of literature and culture made another figure became more and moreremarkable from the pen of Zhang Chengzhi, this was “the barren hero”. This thesiswill focus on the double self-images which constitute by “the son of people” and “thebarren hero” to draw up the discussion around Zhang Chengzhi. The foreword willput the “realism” as the core, in order to reorganize, analysis and evaluate the existingwriter studies gradually. The first two chapter will deliberately explore the literarygenerate of the writing principle “for the people” and it’s various meaning, retrospectthe profound relevance between the ideal of the Read Guard in1960s and the writingprinciple, meanwhile based on the context of the new period literature’s initiation asthe reference point, to discuss the special meaning of Zhang Chengzhi’s literatureroad. Chapter3and chapter4will combine with History of the Soul and other workson the northwest Islam theme, to analysis the transform between “the son of people”and “the barren hero”, interpret the inner strain and conflict of the writing principle“for the people”, sketched the birth of “the barren hero” and it’s underlying problem.Chapter5and chapter6will turn into Zhang Chengzhi’s prose creation, go ongrasping his writing principle and life choice, judge the praise and the disputesurround Zhang Chengzhi during the “humanistic spirit” discussion stage, combseveral subjects of Zhang Chengzhi’s essay writing since the mid-nineties.Summing up the above, the questions this thesis try to answer include the following aspects: first, as the abstract of Zhang Chengzhi’s writing and life spirit,what is the literary association between idealism and history, reality, what is therelationship between “the son of people” and “the barren hero” which coexist insidethe idealism, and how it impacted on Zhang Chengzhi’s writing; second, if take ZhangChengzhi as a special and highly controversial writer, what dose the existence ofhimself, the personal writings and the life experience of himself mean to Chinacontemporary literary world; third, what difficulties and intricacies did he sufferedwhen Zhang Chengzhi pursued the path that combining the intellectuals and thepeople together, what enlightenment will put forward to China for both nowadays andthe future by the thinking resources he leave behind. Because of the research subjectclosely embed in the historical context and the social reality of contemporary China,and also because of the principle “speak inside the culture” which Zhang Chengzhiemphasized, and the Third World standpoint he expressed in the cultural imperialismcriticism, the method of this thesis will not covers more western literature and culturetheory, but rather bring in social historical transition, literary trends’ alternation,synthesize the material in various directions, take intensive reading of the text as themain way to enter Zhang Chengzhi’s writing, thinking and life experience, based onexisting research results, in order to redefine and re-analysis the significance of ZhangChengzhi to our time.