Research On The Changes Of The Children's Novel In The New Period

The object of study in this thesis is the children's novel in the new period,by comparing with that in the 50-70 eras of 20th century.The thesis observes and analyses the children's novel from the angels of the subject matter,the image,the theme,the principles of creation and the narrative pattern,which is in order to present the characteristics of creation,advantages and disadvantages of children's novels in the new period thoroughly and specifically.From the view of the subject matter,the campus novels in the new period present the"re-campus" literary phenomenon on the base of the "dis-campus" in the 50-70 eras.The novels about family life in the new period present the "re-family" literary phenomenon on the base of the dis-family" description in the 50-70 eras,and even having the feature of "post-family".In the novels of rural subject matter,the "politicization" characteristics gradually develop into "dis-politicization"after the 50-70 eras.In the novels of urban subject matter,the description is converted from"anti-modernity" into "modernity".In the novels of revolutionary subject matter,the "macro narration" is replaced by the "micro narration" which narrates the revolution in another way by supplementing and enriching the previous grand narrative.From the view of the image of characters,the ideal children in the new period are regarded as"little men" who fit the needs of the new era of reforming and opening and dare to challenge and want to be independent.They are no longer "advanced model" who are docile and obedient to their teachers and parents completely.Revolutionary children begin to convert from fantastic heroes in the new period into ordinary little soldiers.The images are built with new realistic skills.The children with true qualities in the new period reflect the real life of the most children in the contemporary age,rather than those happy naughty kids in the 50-70 eras but schoolboys in the intermediate state.In the novels of the new period,the "problem children" need to be educated and differ from those in the 50-70 eras,who are not true "problem children".It is adults rather than children that have "problems",because adults regard some children's natures that do not satisfy their demand as "problems"Handicapped children in the new period refer to disabled children who have obvious incomplete organs or tissues causing behavioral problems and intelligence challenged children who have slight organ damage causing communicating problems.They have physical and intellectual disabilities but they are kind.Handicapped children are often used to represent the negative children in the novels in the 50-70 eras.It is an intended vilified art in order to highlight little heroes.There almost exists no reliable description about handicapped children in the novels and the true handicapped children are covered.The image of female in the 50-70 eras is transformed from "tomboys" and "brave girls" into"sweet young girls".In terms of the theme implication,there is more expression of "private feelings" in children's novels in the new period,while more emphases were laid on the "public feelings" in children's novels in the 50-70 eras.With the theme of human nature,there is no longer "class-only" description.And we can never take the idea that human nature can only be expressed through classes.Nor can we simply regard the one owning verified characters who live among all kinds of social relationships as the embodiment of the classification,instead we should review it as the carrier of diversity,describing the concrete,reliable and even moving universal human nature.Compered with the political misery of children's novel in the 50-70 eras,the children's novels in the new period stress more on individual misery.Children's novels in the new period with the growing-up theme aim at describing the growing up processing of children.The growing processing aren't under political consciousness which are called "passive growing" but the natural growing procedure of children which are called "active growing".Judging from the principles of creation,realistic novels in the new period break the rules of the revolutionary realism,restoring its authenticity and criticalness.Up to the mid 80s,under the influence of the foreign thoughts and root-seeking literature,romanticism which is interrupted gradually starts to wake up.Children's novelists in the new period breaking the chains of traditional realism and romanticism use modernist writing techniques for reference,and manage to explore and innovate the art forms of children's novels.As a result,some children's novels,with modernism characteristics such as a stream of consciousness,symbolism,magic realism,etc,come into being.Some novels under the influence of post-modernism are reflected in flattening the structure and the counter-depth of the content.From the view of narrative pattern,in person and perspectives,children's novel in the new period changes from the simplified perspective in the 50-70 eras into rich and diverse one.Time consciousness and narrative time are quiet different from that in the 50-70 eras.It reflects the time of the individual life age replacing the social calendar time and the inner psychological time breaking the outside linear order of the objective time.Novels in the new period focus much on psychological emotion of the characters while in the 50-70 eras they focus on the narrative of external single story.As a consequence,similar changes have taken place in the narrative structure of the novel,from the original "story-plot" mode into "psycho-emotion" narrative structure.Comparing with the creation in the 50-70 eras,the subject matter,the image,the theme,the principles of creation and the narrative pattern in the new period children's novel have many distinctions.This new changes have taken place not only because of the political chaos,but also the development of literature itself.Children's novel in the new period revises the deficiency of the novels in the 50-70 eras and inherits great tradition of modern literature and makes use of the strengths of contemporary adult literature,and achieves great success which are above-mentioned.However,under the influence of marketization,the blind pursuit of economical interests makes the creation of children's novel have a tendency of moving from the pursuit of art to the reader-centric.