Resisting Utopia

Fredric Jameson's thought is complex and his theory is concerned with many aspects of literature and culture. The question, which is discussed in this thesis ,is just one of the multitudinous questions that he has talked about, that is, the Third World's Literary"National Fable".This thesis involves some of Jameson's theories and methods rather than generally discussing his total academic thinking. Focusing on the"National Fable", we undertake a systematic research and combine reality and current development to make a deeper understanding of the Third World Literature.The thesis begins its discussion from the question of"National Fable", that is, the famous argument in his essay Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism .The Third World's text, even the text about personal interest, always uses national fable to reflect the politics. Sometimes, it contains the narration of the whole nation's hard course. The raising of this question certainly causes many debates and discussions among scholars. Ai jaz Ahmad is the most famous one among these scholars. These debates reflect Jameson's academic background and standpoint.Taking this question as a starting point, the thesis first discusses the theoretical background of the national fable, which consists of two aspects: One is that Jameson has done a lot research to this type of fable and then he summarizes the Third World's literature to the national fable; the other is about Jameson's personal academic background---the thought of generalization and dialectic. This point should be the deeper reason , which determines the putting forward of Jameson's national fable.The third chapter is a specific analysis of the direct factors that leads to the raising of the national fable. After giving exact expounding of the Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalism, Jameson points out some characteristics and limitations of the culture of the late capitalism. Jameson thinks that the American, who are slave-owners and thus feel superior, inevitably have some cognitive demerits, which in turn results in the deficiency of post-modernism culture. Therefore, Jameson turns his attention to the Third World. The text, which takes Luxun's works as representatives, becomes a piece of resisting areas as Jameson expected.However, Jameson's logical inferences and theoretical researches are but a dream of utopia, because the Third World literature is far more complex than he imagines. The national Fable's text, which has Lu Xun's works as representatives, is only a small part of the Third World literature. In addition, the Third World literature changes greatly in the process of globalization.