On The Tragic Implication Of Lu Yao's Novels

Lu Yao's novels are composed of various tragedies, including tragedy of the youth's struggle, tragedy of their anguished love, the inevitable survival tragedy of life and the heroic tragedy formed by history. Therefore, Lu Yao's novels are enveloped in strong tragic atmosphere, always leaving readers depressed. However, sorrow is not the only thing that his novels give to readers. The more important is that in his novels there is a strong heartening power, which is exactly the gist of tragic spirit."There is no doubt that tragic is tinged with pessimism and melancholy. At the same time it inspires readers with deep truth, a heroic style and a magnificent quality suggestive of poetry. It plucks beautiful roses from brambles for us."This thesis will interpret the tragic connotations of Lu Yao's novels from three aspects: forms of expression, characteristics and contributing factors.In Lu Yao's novels, three main forms of expression are employed to express the tragic connotations, including the destiny tragedy of"heroes", the survival tragedy of common people and the love tragedy of females. The"heroes"in this thesis mainly refer to Gao Jialin and Sun Shaoping who struggled endlessly. They were common peasant sons but also"populace heroes"because they possessed the characteristics of heroes. They were not reconciled to the peasants'life that"destiny"—actual conditions—arranged for them. They struggled indomitably in order to fight with this fixed life style. But their struggle finally failed and they became tragic heroes. Different from Gao Jialin and Sun Shaoping, Sun Shaoan did not fight with his destiny. He lived along the way that the destiny arranged for him, hoping to be a remarkable peasant. But tragedy is also ubiquitous in the survival of common people. Sun Shaoan encountered many frustrations and fell over and over again in his life. But when he struggled to his feet tenaciously and finally realized his dream, his beloved wife died. Then, Sun Shaoan's life was unhappy. Lu Yao endows peasant girls in his novels with many traditional virtues: diligent, kindhearted and beautiful. They pursued happy love bravely. They glittered with love. There was no doubt that love was something of great value in them. However, their love encountered merciless destruction and they had to endure the bitterness caused by this destruction.Lu Yao's works present their own features when revealing these tragedies. From his unique historical perspective, Lu Yao, who worked on farms unremittingly in"the intersection region of town and country", reveals that the root of these tragedies is the increasingly widening disparity between town and country. The protagonists still hold an unyielding spirit though they encounter many tribulations. Sun Shaoping, Sun Shaoan and beautiful peasant girls all have in them this spirit of struggling, which is the gist of tragedy. In the expression of tragic emotions, Lu Yao chose a pattern which is from"great happiness to great sadness". This pattern has an intense impulse.The formation of tragic connotations in Lu Yao's novels is naturally connected with the creator of these works. It is exactly Lu Yao's tragic complex which runs through his whole life that molded his tragic novels. Therefore, it is necessary to inquire into the author himself in order to study the contributing factors of tragic connotations in his novels. Lu Yao's life was full of sufferings. Based on his life experience, he watched humans with deep feelings and found that life was doomed to a tragedy. At the same time, the formation of Lu Yao's tragic consciousness is positively connected with the culture that he received. Firstly, the regional culture of North Shanxi represented by Xin Tian You has a dual nature, bold and sorrowful. Therefore, Lu Yao had a heroic spirit of struggling actively as well as a melancholy feeling of bemoaning the state of the universe and pitying the fate of mankind. Secondly, when Lu Yao derived nourishment from the treasure house of human culture, he chose unconsciously the realistic tragic works to study, which accorded with his temperament. And this in return aggravated his tragic consciousness.