A Study On The 90s' Novels In The Context Of Cultural Conservatism

The cultural conservatism first appears in the west Enlightenment,which is aby-product of the western modernization. Its essential feature is that it tries to criticizethe excessive inflation in the process of modernization and such problems as humanalienation and the loss of meaning. Along with the expansion of capitalism,culturalconservatism also enlivens in the non-western area. After the Opium War,China'spolitics and cultural crisis deepened. The cultural conservatism mounts to the stage ofChinese culture and thought and passes through the whole process. The conflictbetween conservatism and the radicalism constitutes the basic landscape of Chinesecultural circle of the 20th century. And it becomes the basic separator of differentintellectual camp and the basic symbol of different cultural value orientation. Since90's,the cultural conservatism, as a kind of cultural ideological, has involved indifferent cultural domains. And it obtained the different manifestation in the differentcultural space. How to regard this cultural phenomenon has become a hot problem ofthe cultural circle. And this hot spot is still on the rise until now. In 2004, suchactivities as the tenth anniversary of "Yuandao", Reads the Confucian classics thestruggle and "Culture Manifesto in Jiashen year" have been seen as the rise of culturalconservatism. Therefore the year 2004 is known as the year of cultural conservatism. The cultural conservatism, as an important thought of the 1990s, has producedan impact on the culture of this period. Under this ideological influence,in the 90's,some great writers turned the sight to Chinese traditional culture, including ZhangWei, Zhang Chengzhi, Jia Pingao, Chen Zhongshi, Yu Qiuyu, Tang Haoming, ErYuehe, Han Shaogong, Ye Zhaoyan, Wang Anyi and so on. Some of their works showthe admiration of agricultural civilization;some show their criticism of modernizedsociety;some shows the reconstruction of the national spirit. Between the lines, theyreveal the tendency of cultural conservatism. At the same time, they echo the thoughtof conservatism consciously or subconsciously. Therefore, cultural conservatismdeserves our further thinking. First, it suggests that the Chinese society is entering theperiod of modernization, and the two-sided effect puzzling the western world alsobecome a problem that the people have to face. Second, under the modernity apparentthreshold, the possibility and reality are strengthened, and conservative is seen as anesthetic behavior, as well as the validity of the resistance to enlightenment with theaid of conservatism. Third, from the point of view of the works of conservatism in the90s, the writers are trying to explore the proposition: what implication should theconservatism give to the modern people. Based on the point, the problem becomes thecentral subject of the paper.There are lots of works in the 90's, and it is impossible to make a thoroughanalysis of all the works. For the sake of convenience, the present study focuses onthe most representative works, the novels. In the development of the 90's literatures,the novel holds the extremely important status doubtlessly. And it reflects all kinds ofchanges of the times and occupies the forefront of ideological development. Itsspiritual development keeps pace with the cultural development, and the length andthe content of the novels determine its status presenting the literary achievement ofthe times. Therefore, it is scientific and representative to choose novel as the researchmaterials. The novels are very popular in 1990s, but it is also impossible to study allof them. Therefore, I only choose some influential works as the data of analysis in thehope of shedding some lights of the research of the novels of the 90s.In view of the fact that the readers hold the dated views, as well as theambivalent comment in critical field, the present paper makes a further study. Thepaper is divided into three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the interpretation forthe cultural trend, the history of the cultural conservatism, as well as the reason for itsemergence and its traits. The second chapter mainly deals with the conservative mindof the writers in the 90s. The third chapter is the core of the present paper, whichillustrates the cultural conservatism from the perspective of the modern criticism, theexpression of the spiritual home, the modern view of the traditional culture, in orderof reconsideration, return and identification. The present paper aims to make a clearpicture of the works to provide an overall reference and understanding of culturalconservatism.