Soaring With Heavy Wings

The novel narration of the countryfolk going up to towns is involved with the complex factors such as the individual as a countryfolk in the context of modernized China. In this paper, the figure image of the countryfolk going up to towns in the novels since 1980s is selected as the study object, with the pivoting points of the modernization and life. The discussions are developed along the two dimensions of towns and countryside and traditional times and modern times, with the logic order from the character representation to spiritual image, and to life pattern, this paper anatomizes the figure's social, cultural and aesthetic connotations step by step. This paper, about 35,000 words, excluding introduction and conclusion, consists of three parts. The introduction explains that the appearance of modernization leads to the emergence of the dual structure of countryside and town, that is the precondition and origin of the production of the countryfolk going up to towns. This paper delineates the features of the various stages in which the figures develop over a century, and pinpoints that the specific background and meaning of the figures since 1980s. In this part, the range of the study object, the main ideas and framework are briefly stated. The first chapter: character representation is the binary paradoxical marginal person. The nucleus character of the countryfolk going up to towns in the novel since 1980s is "marginal personality." This chapter mainly focuses on the figures such as Gao Jialin, Jingou, Zou'ai, Feng Jiachang, Zhao Qiaoying, Xiangxiang, Lu feng, and Wu fu, through the three aspects of the life pursuit of virtue-juxtaposed-with-vile,love and marriage of feeling-mixed-with-reasoning and the urban feeling of love-mingled-with-hate. The second chapter: the spiritual image is about endless fetters. In this chapter the focus is given to the spiritual fetters that occurred in the changing process from the countryfolk to the new person of the modern time. The focused construal figures are Lianke, Zou'ai, Laochen, Xiangxiang, Sui Jiansu, and Feng Jiachang etc., the discussions are developed from the perspectives of power worship, vengeance psychological status, personality suicide, family conventions, and peasant thought etc.. In the discussions, the typical texts are carefully analyzed, and the reasons that caused the spiritual fetters are "sought root." The figures' features are studied as a whole, and the characters' spiritual status and the subtle changes of the attitudinal positions of authors' in the 1980-90s are scrutinized in the detail. At the end, it is pointed out that the above-mentioned spiritual fetters not only exist in the figures in the novels but also in the authors who are facing them and should overcome them. The third chapter: the life pattern is the tragic existence and struggle. This chapter mainly explicates the tragic meaning which is entailed in the figures of countryfolk going up to towns in the novel since 1980s from aesthetical perspective, with the broad sense of tragedy for certain individual figures. The focused figures are Gao Jialin, Guo Rui, Zou'ai, Fangyuan, Sui Jiansu, and Feng Jiachang etc.. From the perspective of the tragic protagonists, the figures of the countryfolk going up to towns belong to the tragedy of common people; from the perspective of the reasons leading to tragedy, the figures' tragedy is regarded as the personality tragedy that caused by social environment, except for a sense of destiny tragedy in the Zou'ai's tragedy. The tragedy of Feng Jiachang is called a tragedy of humanity-losing. At the end, the subjective and objective reasons that lead to tragedy are further analyzed. The conclusion: in this paper the figures of the Educated Youth in the educated youth novel who eventually returned to towns are not included in the investigation. To sum up, this paper pinpoints the social meaning and literature value of the figures of the countryfolk going up to towns in the novels.