Home: The Collapse Of The Myth

Family is the fundamental structure of Chinese society. With the development of history and culture, the traditional family culture came to decline in modern society. Modern writers decomposed it in all kinds of ways, and the family criticism became a classical subject of Chinese modern literature. This thesis strives to expound the declination and decomposition of the traditional family culture in Chinese modern literature.Part one: introduction. This part briefly describes the demonstration of the traditional family culture' s legitimacy by Confucianism, and emphasizes that " family" constrained the individual deeply with the strength of family culture' s ethical hue. The traditional family culture came to lose its rationale that led to the family criticism by modern writers.Part two: the preceding section. Modern writers described the external appearance of the house and garden from prosperity to declination through "ruins" imagery. They narrated the trauma and death of the family members' bodies and their minds through "individual-eaten" imagery. By using "leaving" imagery, they also described that the rebels resisted the traditional family culture, and that the heirs lost all hope of the traditional family culture, then they sank into despair.Part three: the following section. It analyzes the relationships between father and son, brothers, mother-in-law and young married woman. Modern writers set up the opposed or different relationship and made the family authority declined by all kinds of powers such as the power of new culture, the power of traditional culture and the power of wild life etc. These powers decomposed the traditional family culture. At the same time, this part analyzes the complex culture-mentality in modern writers' family narration.Part four: conclusion. It is the reasonable logic in this thesis that we must rethink the declination and decomposition of the traditional family culture in Chinese modern literature. There has been a complex machanism of society, culture and mentality in family criticism. Firstly, the decline of traditional family is a historic event, and the decomposition of traditional family is a valuable event, secondly, publicizing the feeling of "dissimilation" is a important reason of the family criticism. Moreover, the decomposition of "family" is related to the complex consciousness of penitence.The thinking of the traditional family culture will be continued. Perhaps "family" is in the course of decomposing or reestablishing, it is a experience, not a conclusion.