Material Culture And Individual Destiny In Tianxiang

Tian-Xiang is a written exploration that Wang anyi takes her pen into history.The novel not only relys on Shanghai in Ming Dynasty, tells a happiness and sadnessstory about Shen’s family, but also involves Chinese traditional garden andembroidery which can represent traditional material culture. Since Tian-Xiangpublication and distribution, scholars have affected to discuss the novel from thepoint of the city and overlook much complexity and culture intentions. Thedissertation will try to take the view from “material culture and individual destiny” toanalyze two traditional material cultures: garden and embroidery in the novel.The first chapter analyzes Tian Xiang Garden which is one of the traditionalmaterial culture and the males in the family who are living depend on the gardenenvironment. There are double themes in Tian Xiang Garden: order and disorder,and the latter is the most important characteristic in the garden. In addition, takingwestern room theory to discover, there are double defections from the men and theroom.The second chapter analyzes Tian Xiang embroidery which is one of the othertraditional material culture and the females who are creators of the embroidery. Thehistory of the embroidery and the embroidery in the history are two dimensionsabout Tian Xiang embroidery. From the contact of females and Tian Xiangembroidery, the latter not only helps females get through the sad time, but alsoimproved into artwork by females.The third chapter takes Tian Xiang Garden and Tian Xiang embroidery intohistory dynamic analysis. On one hand, the decline of Tian Xiang embroidery and thedevelopment of Tian Xiang embroidery are two parallel lines in the novel. Circulationand replacements are the best methods to preserve traditional material culture. Onthe other hand, vitality of Tian Xiang embroidery are much shorter. From the Chinesetraditional method, human beings are an integral part of nature. Not only human’sbehavior, but also the creation of garden and embroidery need accord to the law ofnature. The forth chapter analyzes the language of Tian Xiang. According to the theoryof Satter, the language in Tian Xiang has a characteristic of being substance. On theother hand, language has power to surpass being substance and become animportant line to contact Tian Xiang Garden and Tian Xiang embroidery\males andfemales.