A Spirit Walking Alone

In contemporary Chinese literature, Chi Zijian as a remarkable writer, whose works are characterized by brilliant regional characteristics and prominent individual style, and have received more and more critical attention from literary scholars and produced more and more influence.The thesis, starting from the particular reading experience of a great deal of Chi Zijian's works and employing the traditional Chinese ideological resources, aims to grasp the author's unique mode of artistic conception and her aesthetic ideal on the whole by integrating the sensible experience and the rational analysis. Based upon this, in reference to the situation of contemporary literary creation, it strives to attain a correct appraisal and location of Chi Zijian's creation characterized by her intense personality and special national flavor.The thesis, by analyzing the content of Chi Zijian's works, discusses the special meaning of the author's creation in three aspects.First of all, Chi Zijian's works embody the influence of the traditional Chinese ethic and moral concepts, which implies her deep concern with and her inheritance and adherence to them. On the other hand, Chi Zijian has personally reevaluated and reshaped some aspects of these moral and ethic criteria that restrict and suppress the full and free development of humanity. A peculiar relationship between Chi Zijian and the traditional Chinese ethic and moral ideals is revealed in her unique characterizationand the thanatopsis expressed in her works. Chi Zijian inherits the essence of the Chinese ethic and moral ideals in elevating the human thinking and pursuing truth, goodness and beauty, and absorbs the connotation of Western ideology that esteem the individual existence and the free development of humanity. In this way, the author makes her works possess the nature of pursuing modernity. Both the value orientation in solving the spiritual crisis with ethics and the harmonious coexistence of individualized narrative ethics and human pursuit of modernity are among the important characteristics of Chi Zijian' creation.Secondly, there are quite a lot of idealistic discourses in Chi Zijian's works. She constructs a fairylike world on paper with her free imagination and idealistic languages independent of various ideologies. She views any things appearing in her works with pantheism and endows them with human vitality. At the same time, she creates some supernatural and beautiful images with her soaring imagination. Her characters enjoy a harmonious living with natural things and the inanimate are given due esteem as reasonable beings with life value. Besides, the discourse feature of intense idealism is also revealed in the author's depiction of "illusion scenes". This accounts for the wide attention given to Chi Zijian's works.Thirdly, most of Chi Zijian's works are shrouded in dense tragic atmosphere. But her tragic stories are expressed in a special mode. Commonly, these stories tend to end with the dissolving of tragic conflicts instead of the ruin of all characters as in the Western tragedies. They always dilute the spiritual agony and fear with the transformation and elevation of morality and beauty of personality. The tragic conflictsoften disappear in harmony. This special tragic mode embodies the latent influence of the Chinese traditional cultural spirit of "neutralism". This is another characteristic that distinguishes Chi Zijian from others.The unique artistic conception, aesthetic ideal and outstanding creative talent make Chi Zijian a writer with splendid prospects.