Searching For The Soul Home: Tracks Of Frustration, Wandering In Disappointment And Regression

In the field of literature, Fei Ming have not produced much works andhis works are not following the main trend of literature. In spite of this, FeiMing is known for his relentless pursuit, distinctive features and hence he isan indispensable writer in the history of modern literature. Fei Ming's worksdo not repeat what other writers have written on and he does not repeat whathe himself has written. Both the contents and the styles are varied. In the1920s and 1930s, critics commented on Fei Ming's works as free fromsociety. Nowadays, more critics are focusing on his works, pursuit of poetry.In the thesis, the author holds the view that we have to focus on thewhole process of creation and on the backbone supporting the whole works ifwe want to research into a writer's tendency and changes. Only in this waycan we make an objective and precise evaluation. If we put Fei Ming'screation process to the background of history of modern literature, we willfind his creation process is a process of relentless pursuit of spiritual garden.Starting from the perspective of novel creation, the thesis makes an analysison Fei Ming's development of pursuit of thinking. This thesis is composed ofthree parts.Part One focuses on the changing social background in which newliterature arose. In modern history of China, it was a time full of conflicts andreforms. Conflicts among different classes and nationalities, contradiction ofadvanced and dated thoughts all emerged. This historical backgroundprovided writers with abundant thinking resources and social materials. Inaddition, critics were supplied with multi-dimensional values and criteria.Part Two shows the twisting process of pursuit of spiritual garden. Itconsists of three sections.Section One elaborates on "Story of Bamboo Forest": concern andescape from reality. Critics agreed that Fei Ming is an escapist. Fei Mingwrites in a way that keeps a distance from reality to convey his pursuit ofideal and criticism of reality. Escape is another kind of concern for reality.This special way of concern and escape from reality, saying part of what hewanted to say forms his earlier style of writing and also paves a way for hismodernist road. The distinctive writing features of Fei Ming in this period areas follows: lessening the effect of social background;narrating people'sdesires and fate;relieving people's inner anxiety and sorrow;condensingpeople's feelings in their action;creating a natural beauty, human beauty toescape from modern civilization.Section Two deals with "bridge": the puzzle and pursuit of the world offlowers and the moon. Most of critics' comment on the works "bridge" is onits poetic feature and the originality of the works. This book focuses on thereflection and philosophical thought on relationship between life and art,nature and society. The bridge is a symbol of the transition from the reality todream. Xiao Lin's feeling toward bridge implies the difficulty and remotenessto the ideal world. The conflict of aesthetic principle and the aestheticexperience of forgetting-me makes the writer to be in the dead end of hisaesthetic value. Hence the writer stopped his creation of the work of "TheBridge".Section Three is on the book "Biography of Mr. Nobody": wanderingand sorrow near the broken bridge. This book is the reflection of Fei Ming'ssoul when he suffered from his broken dream of beauty, and his inability ofbuilding his bridge of ideal, and great confusion in his thought. The mess ofplots, the absurdity of the events and the incomprehensibility of the languageshow the grief and anxiety of the writer. Mr. Nobody was in distress which hecould not escape from, and he was hollow in his wisdom, and he also refusedto give up his emotional pursuit. He wanted to go back to reality and he didnot conform to the reality. Hence he suffered from broken personality andmisplaced values.Section Four is on the book "Mr. Nobody on a Plane": changes andregression. In this novel, Fei Ming's value of literature, creation style and histhought underwent great changes and was praised by some people for thechanges. I think his thoughts were sliding and changing. The novel wasinclined to propagate politics though hollow argumentation. The praised"ability of surviving" is in fact the slavery spirit of tolerance, indifference andobedience. Mr. Nobody's sneer of modern civilization and the dream ofprimitive society showed Fei Ming's degradation.Part Three makes an analysis on the bondage of tradition that is hard forwriters to shake off. This part focuses on the cultural genes of traditionalthinking of "Fei Ming Phenomenon". Fei Ming is a courageous and carefulwriter. But the ultimate result of his pursuit is to go back to the traditions andmake a complete end for his creation of novels. It is thought-provoking thatFei Ming started from his pursuit and ended with degradation. There arevarious reasons for this, but the most important is the factor of traditionalculture which is playing a significant role. The view on the universe of unityof heaven and humans and the Confucius idea of taking the whole nation asone's own responsibility play a part in his creation. "Fei Ming Phenomenon"demonstrates that the new intellectuals who grew up in the New CultureMovement cannot shake off the bondage of traditional culture and thoughts.Originality of this thesis lies in that the author puts Fei Ming's creationof novels into the historical background of the emergence and developmentof new literature. The author tries to figure out the clue that guides thechanges from his works of different themes, different styles and differentperiods. Analyzing the representative works from in different periods, theauthor aims to dispose the development of Fei Ming's literary creation, theroad of progressing and its underlying causes.