A Study Of Li Yuanji’s Fictions

Li yuanji,an ethnic Korean writer,entered the literary world during the period of reform and opening up after the Cultural Revolution.Most of his fictions can be divided into two categories:one is about the pain brought by the Cultural Revolution and people’s reflection on it,such as the Suicide of a Party Member and the Heart of the People;The other is about the reality of rural reforms,such as Snowy Night and Spring Love.The tendency of such works can be regarded as the result of the zeitgeist of the writer who started his writing during the period of transition from class struggle to reform and opening up.Based on a systematic analysis of Li yuanji’s fictions through the method of social and historical criticism and intensive reading of the text,and by applying theories of literature and art psychology,new historicism and aesthetics and combining macroscopic overall description and microscopic case study,this paper examines the characteristics and value of Li’s fictions from the following five aspects:The first part analyzes the main tendency of Li yuanji’s fictions and its causes.His dual identities of being ’an intellectual(university professor)’ and ’a peasant’s son’ shape the folk standpoint and critical spirit for his underlying reflection.His suffering and struggle during the Cultural Revolution(launched in 1966)when he was sent to Beidahuang,Heilongjaing province of China in 1968 to ’practice and exercise’ is the main social basis and material source of his critical consciousness.His experience of reform and opening up and living in the countryside for a long time make him pay attention to the changes in ethnic Korean rural areas and portray the image of ethnic Korean farmers and reality of their rural life.The second part elaborates how Li yuanji visualizes the pain through the historical experience and then criticizes the political movement.Three themes run through his critical fictions written during the Cultural Revolution:First,the revolutionary ideal of communism formed a great contrast with the reality of rural poverty,which shows that Left-leaning thinking is divorced from reality;Second,the abuse of power and violence in the name of revolution caused the disaster of the countryside,which reveals the alienation of human nature and the loss of morality under the revolution and power;Third,under the pressure of violence,hunger and power,the living wisdom of ordinary people and their life experience are shown to reconstruct the rural social order,reflect on the meaning of life value and the expectation of ’Human nature is essentially good’,and leave the development space for the self-survival of human nature.The third part discusses Li yuanji’s reflection on the current situation of ethnic Korean rural areas and the current social problems and farmers’ consciousness based on his observation and experience of rural life.Snowy Night and Spring Love describe in detail the process of a great rural reform,during which the ownership of land shifted from collectivization to family joint production responsibility and thus affected the fate of farmers.Leaving Home,written in the later period of reform and opening up,depicts the erosion of rural life by the mentality of samll-farm agriculture and economic rationality lost in the market under the influence of the reform,market economy and multiculture.In a word,Li yuanji has discussed the problems of ethnic Korean rural areas and farmers in various historical stages through his works so as to give voice to the farmers and express his love for them and his reflection on fanners’consciousness.The fourth part expounds Li yuanji’s writing strategy and time structure.His writing strategy can be summarized as follows:first,he contextualized the details and presented the specific situation through detailed description of characters’ words and deeds.Second,he included local legends in his works and used ancient legends to highlight the theme of his novels.Third,he reasonably used funny writing materials in his works to make them more interesting and readable.In terms of technique of expression,Li mainly adopted the method of storytelling.Sometimes,he used flashbacks and narration interspersed with flashbacks so that they will be fun to read and enrich the image of the characters.Sometimes he changed the pace of the story through the vision of multiple protagonists and the leap of time and space.The fifth part discusses language choice and its relevance to the theme of expression.There is no doubt that Li yuanji is known as ’the master of language’.Regional dialects are used to depict the diversity of life in ethnic Korean regions,and sometimes dialects with class identification are used to express human alienation.He is good at using metaphor,especially similes and his language is rich in humor,which is embodied in dramatic plots,absurd and weird characters,and humorous and sarcastic language style.Moreover,he chooses simple language with strong rural flavor and ethnic color.The occasional appearance of ’Korean Chinese’does not seem abrupt,which together with other language symbols compose a harmonious scene.To sum up,this paper makes a systematic analysis of the novels of li yuanji,an ethnic Korean writer,and gives an overall evaluation of his novels by analyzing his themes,narrative strategies,techniques of expression and linguistic features.In more than 20 years of his writing career,Li has always paid attention to issues related to farmers.He has published over 40 novels in which he examined the fate of Korean farmers in the past decades from the perspective of literature.Instead of presenting social politics and policy conclusions,his works grasp the essence of social phenomena and reveals the rapidly changing social landscape and the problems of the Times,especially those that focus on rural areas.Through the comparison of rural life before and after the reform and opening up,those works take major social,historical,ethical and moral issues in each period as the main line.They keenly capture the unique life of farmers and truly displays their interests,wishes,feelings and emotions.This fully proves the unique literary value of Li yuanji’s novels,making him an irreplaceable writer among those who were born in the 40s in Korean literary circle.