The Study On Spy Narratives In Modern China

This dissertation mainly focuses on spy narratives in modern China. It gives a general survey to the narratives about the spies from the20th century to the present, including the related TV plays, films, novels, and characters molding, its origin, the development and artistic features are also involved. The spy narratives in such stages as from1930s to1940s, from1949to1980s and the new century are specially dealt with since the spy narratives in those periods are all endowed with distinctive differential characteristics from which different political and cultural ideologies are revealed. Hence, this dissertation draws a panorama view of the spy narratives in the three different stages and analyzes the changes of artistic techniques in the last80years, in the hope of shedding light on the later literary creation. That’s the main purpose of this effort.The first chapter deals with spy culture, including its origins, features, intellectual sources and cultural connotations. The spy culture, firstly originated from dynasty of Xia, results from the conflicts of politics and the military with its unique functional features and behavioral features. Taking in some traditions from military strategists, Confucianism and chivalrous culture, the spy culture has become an important idea and provided aesthetic space for spy narratives in modern China and a new studying angle for the new culture. The second chapter mainly discusses the origin and development of the modern spy narratives in China. Modern spy novels could be traced back to the novels in China’s hardships, composed in the early1930s by the school of Mandarin duck and Butterfly and became popular in1940s. Those novels were produced in a time when China was in great crisis and popular novels were in vogue. Owing to the author’s passion for his own nation and his view of enlightenment, those novels exerted a strong sense of nationalism and wars in political ideology. In cultural ideology they intended to entertain the audience. That explained why the themes of nationalism and wars, and the writing style with a purpose of entertainment were fused into a whole.As for its content, two elements "big narratives" and "small narrative" are involved in the revolutionary spy narratives in the first30years after the foundation of PRC. The former narrates historical events in history. It means to disclose some laws and logics revealing in history, thus a classical plot narrative model has been demonstrated. As the main source of novel’s artistic power, the later narrates a series of thrilling events or daily life scenes. In character molding the revolutionary spy narratives follow the rules of typed aesthetics and shape many typed images. Caused by the political and cultural model of dual rivals, these images mainly result from the influences of the rules of revolutionary heroism aesthetics. From the late1970s to1980s new elements of entertainment has gained a place in the spy narratives. It is true that the17years of strategy of literature and arts on political ideology after liberation has still been reflected in the narratives with deadly rivals between two different values and social systems. The political and cultural model of dual rivals is still perceived to keep this tradition. However, some changes in the ainstream ideology in this stage could also be perceived. By an analysis of the themes and the characters it becomes obvious that certain element of fashion is added so as to make them more appealing.The new century anti-espionage TV plays present a panorama transcendence in narratives to all types of anti-espionage TV plays. This transcendence could be fully expressed in weakening strong class will and emotion with family ethics sentiments, in pushing forward development of anti-spy plot with secondary emotional threads in daily life, in shaping vivid characters images, like detecting heroes or policemen, as well as female and female spies from the angle of folk people.The third chapter elaborates on the legendary narration. The author of this dissertation holds that legendary narration refers to narrating something queer and odd with clever plots. As far as its content concerned, legend specializes in shaping one-dimensional and multi-dimensional characters, and dealing with the multi-interactions of legends as well as the complicated issue of love and lust. As for the writing techniques, legendary narration distinguishes itself by suspense and conflicts and its variation of time and space.The fourth chapter explores the body narrative. This chapter analyzes female bodies in the spy narratives in different historical stages in the light of the Body Theory. Female bodies in the narratives from1912to1949were free bodies, from them a message of liberation could be perceived. Female bodies in the spy narratives from1949to1980s, especially the female agents in the anti-espionage films, were politicized. However, in the21st century female bodies were regarded as targets for consumption. They were usually over portrayed as carriers of entertainment and commercialization. Obviously the female bodies in the last two stages showed distinctive differential features. The former, including red female bodies and black female bodies, were not allowed to be fully displayed owing to the restriction of asceticism, while the later were confined to consumption ideology. It is apparent that the narration about female bodies is influenced by the politics, culture and economics in different historical periods, causing the loss of female bodies’ subjectivity.The male bodies in the narratives are usually related to violence. They are either punished or killed, which suggests the standards of morality and justice in the Chinese society. Politically speaking, it gives expression to the national will and legitimizes the brutal force. Culturally speaking, it is the label for heroism. Furthermore, it meets the audiences’ sensual expectation. The subjectivity of male bodies is also obscured in the spy narratives.The fifth chapter expounds on the romantic narration in spy films. The spy films turn out to be a hit in the first decade of the new century, which is an important social and aesthetic phenomenon. The reason for the popularity lies in the fact that the romance in spy films agrees with the audience aesthetics in the cultural and political aspects. The romance is embodied by the modeling of heroes with a sense of idealism and optimism. What’s more, the creating of suspense and the arranging of horrible events and scenes provide the audience with an experience of mysteries, which is, again, the manifestation of romance. The following elements, new mythology rule, psychological demand of isolated cultural individuals, and need of citizens’aesthetics, especially the prevalent abusing of romance and chivalry, all contribute to the romance in spy narratives. All those deserve our reflection.