The World Of Ge Fei

This thesis is a study on the works of Ge Fei, a pioneering contemporary novelist in China. On the basis of and through the careful reading of the fictional toots and from the viewpoint of holistic study, it reveals the uniqueness of Ge Fei's novels in the themes and the forms, which are not only representation of Ge Fei pioneering quality but also the value of Ge Fei in the history of Chinese contemporary literature. It attempts to display the whole characteristics of Ge Fei's novels from the approach of influential research and point out that the Chinese pioneering writers share the common feature that they cannot get rid of the strong influence of the traditional Chinese classical literature and the western modernist literature, in the combination of which Ge Fei forms his own characteristics.In the beginning, this paper briefly generalizes the significance of the pioneering novels in Chinese literature in 1980's and points out that the pioneering novels, in some sense, are enlightening to the form of Chinese literature. As a representative of the pioneering novelists, Ge Fei has his unique features in the forms of his novels, which is decided by the crucial factor of the theme. This is the introduction, which is followed by the main part.In the main part, the thesis makes a detailed study of the features of Ge Fei's world from the three aspects of theme, form and whole formation of the novels respectively.The first section is the study on "existence", which is the eternal theme of Ge Fei's novels, because, to Ge Fei, writing originates from the puzzle and the inquiry of self-existence of individuals. "Existence" is his thematic word and the other words related are "memory", "forgetting", "time" and "death". In his novels, Ge Fei explores the relationships between "existence" and "memory", "existence" and "time", and "existence" and "death". He also talks about in different texts somesub-propositions that derive from "existence", for example, whether "existence" can be defined, how the existence of individuals is defined and whether the spirit of individuals exists. All these themes are integrated in Ge Fei's novels and thus form the outstanding feature of his world, so they are the cornerstones for us to understand Ge Fei's world.The second section is the discussion on "vacancy", which is the extraordinary feature in the form of Ge Fei's novels. Ge Fei makes use of many skills in designing the forms of his novels, among which vacancy is the most important concept. He makes vacancy in many of his fictional texts and finishes writing his texts by trying to fill in the vacancy. His vacancy is different from that of the traditional realistic novels in that his (vacancy) is not filled in at all. It not only has its functions in the form, but also metaphorically expresses his understanding of the reality of life. Besides, it can be dealt with in the first vision and second vision theories. However, Ge Fei's novels, on the whole, are short of the contents of the first vision.The third section is about "combination", which is another important feature of Ge Fei's novels in the whole formation from the approach of influential research. On the one hand, Ge Fei is influenced by the western modernist literature, so his novels have the modernist charms. On the other hand, he is also strongly influenced by the traditional Chinese classical literature, and hence his novels are the combination of modernism and classicism, and philosophy and lyricism in the whole formation. However, the two influences are not correspondent, with the former being overt and strong, and the latter covert and weak. In short, this section can be taken as either the explanation of the two features above or the distillation of them.In the conclusion, the thesis briefly sums up the significance of Ge Fei. As a typical pioneering writer, Ge Fei is very distinctive. It is his uniqueness, his profoundness and his sincerity that show the charms of the world of his novels.