Tradition And New Change: The Study Of Wu Jian-ren's Thought And Novels

The Chinese and Western cultural conflict and exchange in modern times and the initiation of the revolution to novels by the capitalist reformists impeled the new change of the Late Qing Novels on the basis of inheriting the tradition of Chinese Ancient Novels. The Late Qing Novels became a kind of new novel different from the tradition. Wu Jian-ren is one of the most famous novelists in Late Qing Period. His representative work "Odd status quo witnessed by me in the past 20 years" is regarded as one of the Four Condemnation Novels in Late Qing Period. Besides this novel, some other novels written by him such as "The sea of regret","Odd injustice of nine lives","A bitter history","A new story of stone"are also considersd as excellent representative works in the New Novels of the Late Qing Period.The cornerstone of Wu Jian-ren's cultural outlook was strong suffering consciousness and the spirit of patriotism, with the new idea of western democracy and science and the ethics of the confucianists as its two aspects. Wu Jian-ren advocated to conform the Chinese and Western culture,regress to traditional culture,improve society and human mind with morality and establish an ideal state of the highly development of the material and spiritual civilization.The novels of Wu Jian-ren mirrors the changes of the era from the angle of social custom. The general mood of the political rotten in the Late Qing officialdom,the chase of benefit and swindling in business,the worship of the western and money in the society are all the targets of criticism and deep going expose. Through the mould of "Jiu si yi sheng" and "Baoyu", he displayed his exploration to the social problems and the fate of his motherland.Wu Jian-ren used the western artistic methods for reference and did some useful experiments in the narrative angel,narrative time and psychological description. He struck the conventions of traditional Chinese novels in narrative of traditional Chinese novels in narrative model and characterization to some extent.The novel creation of Wu Jian-ren, together with the creation of New Novelists in Late Qing Period, constitutes an important phase in the development and reform of the Chinese novels in modern times.