The Lament Of Hardship And Struggle

Yan Lianke, one of the most representative writers of local literature in China today, started his literary creation from the late 1970's. Since then he has works with a total of more than six million characters published and is still preserving plenty of vigor of literary creation. His works mostly focus on the connections between the peasantry and the land as well as the living conditions and destiny of the peasants, unfolding the theme of local human relationship which reflects the main spirit of the times in China in the second half of the twentieth century. Hardship and struggles, just like two mainstays, are two key subjects in Yan Lianke's works, which support and run through his whole creations from beginning to end.This thesis includes three main parts.The first part gives a clear explanation of the theme on hardship in Yan Lianke's literary creations. Yan Lianke is considered to be a writer with awareness of deep hardship, which is shown in the thesis through the analysis of the most vivid and distinct typical descriptions of abundant tough surroundings and details selected from Yan Lianke's works. Hardship is analyzed in his books to stem from the old and backward agricultural civilizations, modern commodity economy, wars and so on. Finally, the thesis displays the significance of the writer's description about hardship, reminding everyone of us, as a nation supported by agriculture, China needs badly to solve the problems of the peasantry on its way to the modernization.The second part states clearly the theme of struggling in Yan Lianke's works. People living in misery are striving to struggle for their existence. It is the difficulty of existence that determines the necessity of the struggles. What the characters in Yan Lianke's works are struggling against are mostly miserable and cruel natural surroundings and the irreversible destiny. However, most of the struggles are doomed to be series of despairing failures. So his works are full of the flavor of tragedy, but at the same time he not only expresses his praise for the spirit of tenacity, persistence and dauntlessness of those in tough life, but also shows his concern about the nature of human existence. In this ode to the struggles ,Yan Lianke offers the Chinese literature a group of literary images ofpeasant heroes and heroines such as You Sipo, Xian Ye, Sima Lan and so on, who are the only and real tragic figures with heroic spirit in the corridors of Chinese contemporary literatures.The third part mainly expounds the ways of narration in Yan Lianke's literary creations. Yan Lianke sticks to the principle of traditional realism in his early works. Later on, he conscientiously inherits the valuable legacy-the modernistic techniques of expression-of local literature at home and abroad, which has been fused into his own flesh, blood and soul. The language with his skilled use of cross-feelings has become the label of his literatures. His symbolic and allegorical narration deepens the theme of his works. The structure and forms full of exploratory flavor in his works represents his increasing maturity of artistry. Yan Lianke has become a master of art and ideology, who is expert in depicting the subjects of local human relationship in China today.