Penetrate The Death, To Explore Caoyu's Complex Of Death From His Earlier Plays

When the balance of life and death slopes in the direction of living again, it is necessaryto call for a kind of grave and stern consciousness of death. This article tries to explore CaoYu's complex of death and his special thanatopsis and positive meaning from his earlier playsthrough the angle of the "death". The article is divided into five parts, including the preface.The preface mainly gives an general introduction of the death philosophy in the worldand the naissance of the idea of death in modern China, and indicates the cultural origin andthe background of the 1920's China for CaoYu's death idea. The article mentions that deathculture and the death philosophy are of long standing and well established, there were manyimportant death ideas in history, they were mankind's intelligence distillate of ten millionyears' history and had far-reaching guidance and enlightenment meaningful to our human'sexistence of the present and the future. Death is a classical theme in literary works too,however, at the beginning of the 20th century, China as a nation has sunk into the enormouspredicament of dangerous situation and the collapse of faith. Death has become an importanttheme in the contemporary literature again. From these works, we can find out that theChinese death idea had changed enormously and evolved into three kinds: the modern deathconsciousness, the individualistic death idea and the naturalistic death idea. Just under thebackground and influence of these three kinds of death idea, Caoyu has borned as aplaywright with his own special death idea.Chapter 1 makes a concrete analysis of the death narrative in CaoYu's earlier plays. Asthe second generation of writers in the great tide of Chinese new-vernacular literature since" the May Fourth Movement ", CaoYu prefered to the death theme equally and paid moreattention to the death theme. Nearly all of his earlier plays involve the death and they werepacked with a large number of death incidents and death images. In each of his play we cansee characters' death and various kinds of death forms, such as committing suicide, homicide,physical death and spiritual death, etc. So we can say that the "death" was a complex andenticement for CaoYu in his early days, which he couldn't get away from at all, it constantlyinfluenced CaoYu on selecting suitable materials and conception.Chapter 2 mainly explores the forming of Cao Yu's death complex. There were variousreasons for the formation of CaoYu's complex of death and his preference to the death theme.Firstly it is because of his unique life experiences, CaoYu was good at thinking and he wassensitive. Secondly under the influence of Chinese classical literature, western tragedy worksand consciousness of tragedy which sympathizes common people's hard survival in thecontemporary literature. CaoYu had accepted the death prototype unconsciously and formedsuch aesthetic temperament as concerning death and pursuing the strong histrionic and tragicimpression. Thirdly because of the intuitional esthesia mode and motive catharsis mode.CaoYu was more sensitive than rational, he tended to be immersed into a kind of mood or afeeling and excessively relied on his own emotion's fluctuation in the process of inditing. Soinditing plays has become an important quomodo of abreacting Cao Yu's suppressed emotion.Chapter 3 analyzes how Cao Yu's unique works' death idea embodied his death complex.CaoYu's plays about death were very brilliant in the literaturary history. They embraced verydeep thought and high art value and showed CaoYu's death idea that was differnt from otherwriters. CaoYu's death idea had been deeply influenced by other writers, so it contained manyelements of that time's death ideas. CaoYu's death idea was a creation of the particularenvironment and time. At the same time, because of unique personality, life experience,emotion type, aesthetic tendency etc, CaoYu's death idea had many characteristics that weredifferent from other death ideas. It was unfolded in the following aspects: profound tragicconsciousness of destiny, obvious modernity, intense and mixed religious meanings and therewas an obvious changing course from cruel to mild. It seemed to be more miscellaneous,abundant, stereoscopic and variable.Chapter 4 mainly investigates the meaning and value of CaoYu's death idea and deathnarrative. CaoYu has deeply and objectively described people's existent state in the period ofhistory alteration through his own writing and showed deep sympathy for the tragedy incommon people's life. CaoYu admired and appreciated the people who dare to challenge thedeath and suppression. This showed CaoYu's strong humanitarianism in heart and hisconcerning of mankind's predicament in its survival, his conscious spirit of exploring theultimate world. CaoYu's plays about the death inherited the ancient death theme and werevery significative for the literatary history. CaoYu's plays about the death had enormousrealistic meanings, it can influence real life even more and bring deep enlightenment andinstruction to contemporary readers, letting people know how to "live" betterly. Literatureespecially involves such great theme of " death " and it is equally a kind of culture andphilosophy, and it has eternal meaning on human's philosophy and culture.