Literary Characteristics And Cultural Connotations Of Contract Narrations In Fictions Of Ming And Qing Dynasties

Contract activities originated from slavery Zhou Dynasty. After a long era development, contract had been widely used in fields of politics, economics, military, and culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties. At that time, a large number of fictions which concerned about contract activities, contract concept and contract culture appeared in the field of literature. These fictions surpassed the previous generation in the way of expression fields and quantity, and this phenomenon had been the most prominent characters of narrative fiction in Ming and Qing Dynasties. In these fictions about contract narrations, there were three main features: multiplicity contracts, particular narration expressions and rich cultural connotations.Based on these new phenomena, this paper studied on the issue of contract narrations. In the research, there were mainly five aspects of work: analyzing basic types and form characteristics of these works; revealing themes of contract narrations; exploring particular significance of narration; explaining its idea themes and cultural connotations; expounding its literary and cultural values.There were all six parts in this paper, including 'Introduction', 'Text' and 'Conclusion'.On the basis of tracing back to the relationship between ancient fictions and contract, the 'Introduction' described the panorama of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties, and built a clear frame of these contract narration works. This part was the base and logical begin point of this paper. Furthermore, two research methods were simply introduced: inter-cultural and historical evidence, cross-disciplinary study.The first chapter was 'the types and basic characteristics of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties'. There were two parts: analyzing the whole and part contract narrations in the angle of frame; analyzing the types of ethical, political and economical contract narrations in the angle of theme. In the second parts, ethical contracts were the key note. In the ethical contracts, marriage contracts were typical, and its quantity was more than that of others. Therefore, the marriage contracts were the key issue in second aspect.The second chapter was to explore the theme connotations of fictions in Ming and Qing Dynasties. There were two parts: idea theme analysis; relationship between contract narration and theme. In the part of idea theme, honesty was the core connotation, loyalty, gratitude were the second re-shape, and taboo was an reverse extension, these four aspects constituted the major narrative themes of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Relationship between contract narration and theme tendencies of contract narration was reflected in the state of contract narration and themes of fictions, which was closely related to the political background.The third chapter was to study the narrative value of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties. There were three parts. In the first part, frame of contract narration were analyzed, and this part was completed with two angles: macro-mode of contract narration, micro-frame of text; in the second part, techniques of contract narration were analyzed, and this work was completed from the angles of arts ploy and personality building; in the third part, the spread effect of contract narration was discussed, and this part was mainly to describe the suspense effect from the angle of history.The forth chapter introduced the literary and cultural values of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the first part, innovation significances were discussed from two angles: apotheosis value of the theme in contract narrations; mode significance of structure; in the second part discussed the influences of culture on psychology and custom of the people from the film and poetry which was filmized from the contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties.Based on the former text, the 'Conclusion' elucidated the impacts of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties on the moment from the angles of the literature creation and cultural revelation. Advantages and disadvantages of contract narrations in fictions of Ming and Qing Dynasties were summarized. At the same time, the literatures with honesty theme were strongly advocated. Furthermore, spirits civilization with core of honesty need to be further promoted, especially in aspect of commerce civilization building.