Shen Congwen And Chinese Nationalist Party

Shen Congwen is self-named as a "man from the countryside" who "knows little about politics". He promotes a literary view of transcendal politics and is regarded as a writer pursuing pure literature away from politics. However, after a careful and overall observation of his life .experiences and historical activities under the special political cultural context, it can be found that Shen invariably maintained certain relations with politics and would express his political inclinations from time to time. Although he was an "atheist" in politics as a democrat transcending political parties, he had a deep respect on life and put much emphasis on the independence of literature from politics. The Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), the ruling party at that time, constructed the extrior ecological environment of literature and had a crucial influence on Chinese literature and even the social development. Therefore, Shen bore an inseparable and complicated relation with it as a member of the society.The thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is a general introduction of the thesis. It reviews current researches on Shen Congwen and introduces the issue to be discussed and the research method.The second chapter discusses the influence of CNP on the litreature view of Shen Congwen from two aspects. The first is that the outrageous onslaughter conducted by CNP had caused psychological trauma in Shen Congwen; the second is that CNP trampled on the "world in Xiang Xi" which is the source of his creation and this had brought much agony to him. And the combination of the two made Shen become a firm believer in the separation of literature from politics as he hated politics in the deepest of his heart.The third chapter discusses the "literature system" in CNP and its influence on Shen. The CNP Government in Nanjing tightened its "control" on literature by controlling literary organizations, tightening censorship on literature and esblishing awarding systems in literature. On one hand, such measures disrupted the continuity and spontaneity of Shen's literary creation; on the other hand, Shen's creation is pushed forward by the corresponding social result caused by such measures. The fourth chapter analyzes the symbolic images of CNP in Shen's novels. In his novels, CNP realized and protected "the interest of the party" by physical torturing and mental control. And "officials" and "soldiers", which are symbols of GNP, were described as corrupted, arrogant and cruel. Indeed, Shen expressed his profound distaste of CNP via such depictions.The fifth chapter is a conclusion of the thesis. It concludes that the relations between Shen and CNP and complicated and deserve further researches.