Key Words Of Zhang Cheng-zhi’s Works

Zhang Chengzhi established his status of the literary circle by his novels with the theme of Educated youth. As the critic Meng-Fanhua said, when Scar Literature was popular at that time Zhang Chengzhi’s novels describing the lives in the Pastoral areas brought a new style for the novels, just like fresh air. WangMeng paid close attention for Zhang Chengzhi’s novels earliest and found the feature of Idealism among them. Namely, when some works has described the movement of Educated youth as a disaster Zhang Chengzhi yet confirmed the ideal and contribution of the youth. In the novel Golden pasture with the story of Educated youth and Red Guards idealism is also its important topic. At that time "idealism" almost became the name of his works. Then with the depth research into his novels, Li Jingze once again explained the new implication of the short novel Why horseman praise his mother. In the general literary history Banzhuren and Shanghen were regarded as the mark of the Unfreeze Literature, but Li Jingze considered that the political significance of Banzhuren and Shanghen is greater than that of literature, Furthermore their language and style are too old and still controlled by the logic of Cultural Revolution. Li Jingze so considered that Why horseman praise his mother was real Unfreeze Literature because it emphasized its subjectivity of the narrator and it was a new feature different from the literature of the Cultural Revolution. Li Jingze so demonstrated that Zhang Cengzhi keep distance with the contemprory writers and walked a secluded road for his persistence of subjectivity.In 1984 Zhang Chengzhi went to the rural area of the people of Hui, and discovery the lives, folk customs, history of the popular people. As academic circle has founded,then the content and style of his novels has become a great change. Through his research and experience he found the passion of Jahriyya, a small religious group of Hui, and strengthened his values. On the above basis he wrote the novel History of the Soul. During this period two basic terms has appered many times.One is "people", the other is "humanity". In his works people has two meanings: one means the people of the minority, the other maily means their spirit and faith which Zhang Cengzhi named "unawareness cultural system". People in his novels is an antagonism concept, and its opposite is official and syetem, and so on. People has its own way of recording the history and stress the spirit freedom and man’s dignity. So some critic and researchers have considered Zhang has the trend of "worshiping the people","deifying the people",populism and actually it is a misunderstanding. Zhang is a writer with enlightenment, because later he expanded his meaning of people which including such as civilian and migrant workers. He found the mighty and simplity on the pouplar man,and also criticized their bachward and selfishness. At the same time, Zhang Cengzhi expressed his humanity in his religious novels. He talked religion in his novels, but his purpose is humanity not religion itself, such as something mysterious.Some critics has considered Zhang Chengzhi is a writer of religious believers and his novels as religious literature, which is also a misunderstanding. The humanity in his works is not a theory, but describing the persistence for the faith which actually is a dignity of the people. So in Zhang’s novels humanity is wakeness of the awareness, safeguard of the personality.So here the humanity is not the same concept with the one which was discussed in the academic circle in1980s. Zhang and some other citics also know the difference between them.In the early of 1990s, Zhang Chengzhi has stopped writing novels because of his viewpoint of literature. He considered that time was not the time for the Tide of novles, because writing novels need leisure and margin and necessary imagine. So the criticism and intervention to the actual life has prevented his novel-writing, and he began to write more essays which was named the time of post-hisoty of soul. He expected his essays had his own special theme and style. In 1990s ZhangChengzhi’s essays mainly described the grassland in Inner Mongolia.Xinjiang Tianshan and Northwest Loess Plateau district which was named "three mainlands" by him and include their history, culture and customs. He considered he found "freedom"in Inner Mongolia, and "beauty" Xinjiang Tianshan, "faith" in Northwest Loess Plateau district. In the contemporary literary history he promoted the subjectivity of the minority. Also during this period. ZhangChengzhi published the Spirit of Purity in which he proposed the concept of "purity" and caused intense arguments. Many critics again misunderstood the term and thought it is related with his background of Islamic. Actually the term "purity" was selected from Chinese classical literature and given two new contents:one was the underlying value which means defying power and system, the other was heart-speaking countries and Pleading for the people. The main part of the purity is Literati, namely the group of intellectual. Later he participanted the "Argument of Humanistic spirit", and criticized the Non-believers of the Chinese culture. He tried to introduce and import the Islamic culture into Chinese taditional culture, but it cused many citicize and became the target of public criticism.Zhang Chengzhi put forward the term of Justice which is actually related with his Islamic background. Since 1990s America Waged two wars, Gulf war and the war in Afghanistan which triggerd his angry and criticized the wars in his works. Just at that time he proposed the term of purity. His articles was not purely about politics or only criticized the wars but analyzed the ideological propaganda to beautify the wars, including the scholars and media how to protect the legality for the wars. Zhang Chengzhi has two judgement to Amenrica, firstly he thought Amnerica is a country in which war is acted as the survival, secondly America has regarded the profit of military enterprises as the basis of the country, which was a right-wing new Imperialism and wanted to controlled the whole word again. And thus he disentombed a new concept "Muslims barrier" in Muslim history. Namely, the Muslim countries along the Mediterranean constitute confrontation which decided the destiny of the countries. The barrier can prevent the colonialism. In addition, he tried to find a mutual aid from "Japanese Asianisf" which means that if Japanese can have courage to break away from the "magic circle"from Asia to Europe and clear away the "Empire dirty" itself, Japanese may fight with the Western colonialism with its neighboring countries. His term of Justice has strong critical realism which anti western countries, headed by USA and Britain.The six keywords, including Educated youth, people, humanity, purity and Red Guards, Substantially generalized the styles and features of Zhang Chengzhi’s works. Furthermore, this six keywords represent his values of the underlying people.