An Analysis On The Tragic Sense Of Zhang Ailing's Novels

This article probes the tragic sense of Zhang Ailing from three perspectives: the characteristics, the modern significance and its relation with literal conventions. Zhang lived all her life in tragic solitude. She stood out in Shanghai literal coterie in the 1940s with her novels that were unique, popular but elegant, and conventional but creative. She had all that were required of a writer: sensitivity, exquisiteness and sympathy. She depicted people of gray lives and was sympathetic for their trauma and desolation. Over the long period ranging from 1943 when she made herself known for the first time, to the end of the 80s,she composed but few novels that impressed readers with a clear, thick streak of tragedy against misty setting. This sense of tragedy was cultivated out of her cognition of life, society and time, from which she collected the appropriate elements to map out her distinct mosaic. Desperation was conveyed in her works but had been subdued esthetically, which entails the distinction of her tragic sense and endurance of her novels. She was decidedly influenced by the rhythmicness and sentimentality that is ancient Chinese literature. She viewed the metropolitan life with her distinct sense of tragedy, lending fresh blood to the soul of Shanghai School. Culturally, her tragic sense acquired rich deposit in the melting pot that amalgamating the fabulous modemisticity, legendary humanity, cultural awareness, and feudalism that was mercilessly broken down. With inheritance of philanthropist convention, she grasped the worldly souls, which involves philosophic speculation on the existence and destiny of human beings.