Sartre's Existentialism And Its Influence On Chinese Modern Literature

The French philosopher, litterateur Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the greatest western thinkers. Sartre's Existentialism was a philosophy trend popular in 20th century which was famous all around the world. It is a kind of philosophy on capitalism crisis, as well as a representative of modern western philosophy about humanism which mainly probes into themes on existence like freedom, choice and the relationship between human beings. It is reasonable and positive to some degree while also covers some passive or partial elements. In the early 20th century, Sartre's Existentialism was introduced to China as his works were translated to Chinese. The spread of Sartre's Existentialism experienced a process from weak to strong and then weak again which had an influence on the young Chinese writers. This thesis discussed the influence on Chinese modern literature through analyzing existential ideas in works of some famous modern Chinese writers.The thesis includes five parts. The first part is a brief introduction and the research situation on Sartre's Existentialism in China and abroad. In the second part, Sartre's Existentialism was analyzed in details, including Historical Conditions and Class Foundation, theoretical sources and ideological pioneers, the development and the basic principles of Sartre's Existentialism. The core of Sartre's Existentialism was his famous three principles:Existence precedes essence; Mankind is absolutely free; World is suffering and others are hell. Sartre's existential ideas are embodied clearly in his works. In the next part, the thesis analyzed Sartre's existential ideas displayed in his novels The Wall and Nausea, which is good for people to understand Sartre's Existentialism. The following part mainly discussed the situation of Sartre's Existentialism in China. After it was introduced to China, it began to influence Chinese in some way. As it became popular all around the world, there was also a Sartre hot in China. His philosophy ideas and literary creation had a big influence on modern Chinese literature. This thesis discussed the influence through analyzing the existential ideas in the works of some representative Chinese modern literary writers, such as Qian Zhongshu and Shi Tiesheng. Zhuang Zi was a famous old Chinese philosopher. The philosophy of Zhuangzi has influenced Chinese writers for a long time. His existential ideas on freedom resonated with Sartre's views on freedom. Besides, the famous contemporary thinker Lu Xun's ideas on human's existence also reflected that the world is absurd and life is suffering. In some sense, they are the representatives of Chinese existentialism. However, there are also some basic differences between them. Sartre's Existentialism emphasizes on absolute freedom, but Chinese existentialism prefers to "be independent". While in terms of the relationship between people and other people, Sartre thought others are hell, but according to Chinese existentialism, people all think unity is power. Therefore, a comparison between Sartre's Existentialism and Chinese existentialism was made in the fourth part too. The last part is conclusion, in which the author discussed the limitiations of the thesis and expected a further research on the topic.