Sex And Ethnicity, Country

Yu Da-fu is an important writer in the history of modern literature. As the pioneer of May Fourth New Literature and the representative of the Romantic writers, Yu Da-fu has won respect in the development of modern literature. Yu Dafu's literary reputation arose since his first collection of short stories, "sink", was published. In his works Yu Dafu describes boldly about sex, the hero's depressive inner life, including his abnormal sexual behavior. Besides, Yu Dafu works hard to create a sad atmosphere, shaping a "decadent" aesthetic value in his writing. This unconventionality in writing shocks the orthodox idea of many critics, arousing great controversy in the 1920s. Yu Dafu himself was accused of being a "decadent" writer, and the word "decadence" as evaluation of the immoral people came into vogue. However, any author with independent thinking will be justly evaluated at last. As the study on Yu Dafu gradually deepens since the 1990s, his decadence style as a form of modernity has received a positive evaluation. Yu Dafu's decadent descriptions are more or less tied with the fate of the Chinese nation-state's destiny, and closely related to the country's construction. In the theses, the author attempts to analyze the gender image and gender relations in the works of Yu Dafu, to discuss Yu Dafu's modernity and decadence plus its underlying causes, and to display the tension between sex and nation in his works.In his real life, Yu Da-fu attaches great importance to women, and has love affairs with several women at different stages of his. Therefore, he infuses all his concerns about women into his works, creating in them quite a number of female images. Female character's in Yu Dafu's works correspond to two women in Bible, i.e. the "Eve-type" and "St. Maria-type" . As Yu Dafu is an intellectual in the transition of the old and new age, feudal legacy inevitably remains in his body. In his works, "Eve-type" woman is portrayed as "Flowers of Evil" in the world of males; while the description of "St. Maria-type" embodies man's narcissistic tendency. In Correspondence to the description of two different types of women, Yu Dafu describes men as lonely souls. They are a group of lost young men during May Fourth, unknown people who cannot take charge of their own fate in the darkness of society and the weak who receive much depression and discrimination. Through "the lonely souls", Yu Dafu makes a complaint about that "man-eating society" (in Lu Xun's words), thus wins the respect of readers.Yu Dafu creates in his works a sad atmosphere by the sex descriptions, thus shaping a color of "decadence". The word "Decadence" receives a positive evaluation in mainland China in the 1990s. In his Decadence and Decadent Authors in Modern Chinese Literature, Li Oufan says that "decadence" is a kind of modernity, which echoes with Matei Calinescu's definition for this term in his Five Faces of Modernity. However, in contrast to resistance of the western modernity to the vulgar bourgeois society, the decadence movement in the 1920s China as represented by Yu Dafu is an embracing of the bourgeoisie modernity. These two different forms of modernity are a result of the special conditions of China. The Chinese decadence is the natural choice for the intellectuals to build a modern nation-state in such as semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.Of course, Yu Dafu's decadence also has a negative impact society to some extent, a fact we must not fail to realize. His decadence is a result of a variety of factors. The special era of Yu Dafu's life, his lonely childhood and abnormal life experience, the leftover of feudal thoughts by traditional culture, the shock of Western ideas, and his stay Japan all combine to make him produce so many sex descriptions in his works which gives them a color of "decadence".The sex created by Yu Dafu in a color of decadence is more or less tied to the destiny of the nation. The relation between sex and the nation is fully expressed in his works. Sex assumes of role of ideology in the psychological descriptions. And in process of building a modern Chinese nation-state, the special environment requires nation-state to control everything, thus sex is included in the description of literary works. The sex and nation under Yu Dafu's pen has two forms, both of which, as an inevitable choice, are required by the cause of a new nation-state. The writings about his stay in Japan express the request of "people of a weak nation" to catch up with other nations; while his writings about China show his outrage for the darkness of society and the deterioration of morality in the country. Both of are the manifestation of the modern Chinese intellectuals' "anxiety about the nation" (in Xia Zhiqing's words).Yu Dafu is unique in the history of modern literature. He explores the complex human nature in sad words, which has a timeless significance. His works possess a enormous aesthetic space, occupying a glorious page in the history of modern Chinese literature.