Hero-Worship And Sympathy For Children In Affliction

The "17 years" witnessed a prominent golden age in the field of Chinese children's novels, when children joyfully welcomed the successive publication of a great many works, a large proportion of which are composed in the background of the just bygone war years. These works can be divided into two styles: one style is mainly focusing on directly or indirectly describing revolutionary war and fight to model little heroes powerfully, while the other style is mainly focusing on revealing darkness of the society and pain of common people in the shadow of war to visualize the miserable fate of children in affliction at great length. Following the statement given by Japanese academic circles, this thesis call the works directly or indirectly describing children's life in the war The War of Children's Novels.In view of different charateristics of these two styles of works, as well as their important status in the history of contemporary Chinese children's literature, this thesis trys to, from the angle of modeling different types of child images, discuss in depth these two styles' features and similarities in expressive mold, connotation of affection, direction of theme, etc. and the shift between the two by textual case study of these two styles of classic children's novels. Besides, this thesis trys to examine these two styles in theoretical vision such as nation to reveal how the thematic expression and aesthetic presentation of children's novels are restricted by certain times and how the works convey the imagination of ideal citizen and society, remolding of national spirit, denuncation of and farewell to the old world. At last, this thesis trys to extend its theme by exploring the possible breakthrough in the process of expressing and reflecting war in contemporary Chinese children's novels.