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Representation Of The Folk Culture Resources In The Creation Of Contemporary Writers

Posted on:2010-04-12Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:C YangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2205360275996720Subject:Chinese Ethnic Language and Literature
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Tibetan novelist Alai's long novels have influences that cannot be ignored on contemporary minorities' novel creation and even the whole Chinese long novel creation. This research aims at discussing on how he expresses Tibetan folk culture resources in his long novels successfully and gets huge achievements based on the lack of this kind of researches that relate to the expressions of Tibetan culture resources in his novels.Alai's long novels contain the contents of Tibetan history, philosophy, religions and a great amount of folklores, which have caused the great attention of others, including his novel themes, the people and events that he describes, the way he recounts and also the special angle of visions. This research will discuss on the successful experiences of how Alai uses Tibetan's culture resources by analyzing these two aspects: the novels' themes of Tibetan folk culture resources; the characters' image and structural Tibetan folk culture resources.1 .Tibetan folk culture resources as themes. There will be three sections of this part to discuss on the successful expressions of Tibetan regions and folklores, Tibetan folk songs, Tibetan mythologies and legends resources in Alai's long novels.(1). The expressions of Tibetan regions and folk culture resources. As a Tibetan novelist who was born and raised up in Maerkang where located in the northwest plateau of Sichuan province, Alai has a deep understanding of the local conditions and customs, the history and cultures of it, also the living details of Tibetans in Jiarong Tibetan regions. Primitive and closed Tibetan regions contain both living and writing resources for Alai, that's why most scenes and objects in his novels are about them. Not only are the depictions of the living and customs of Tibetan characteristic and aesthetic, but also they relate to the stories and characters in the novel. They have become the indispensable parts of depicting the characters and representing the themes of the works. It has formed a particular scene of nationality's culture from digging the deep cultures, and also advanced the traits of nationality's cultures.(2).The expressions of Tibetan folk song resources. There is a trait of Alai's novels that catches our eyes, which is putting Tibetan folk songs into the deposition of these stories. This form a special style which as the combination of lyric poem and descriptive novel. Moreover, these folk songs have showed its artistic functions and unique charms, which is also a feature of Tibetan novels of the time. As to Tibetan writers, it is very common to combine loads of songs and stories together perfectly in long novels which has formed a mode of Tibetan long novels. It has close relations to Tibetans' life, religious cultures, and literature traditions. The quoting of Tibetan folk songs and the natural combination with stories are the instincts of Tibetans' aesthetic that formed in thousands of years.(3). The expressions of Tibetan mythology resources. The insert of Tibetan mythologies, legends, stories in Alai's novels is also a successful use of Tibetan folk cultures. It shows the special Tibetan style, local characters, the different way of viewing the world and the mysterious customs of Tibetan plateaus, and also how cultures from ethnic groups influence on the writer's way of thinking and the design of the novels. Mythologies, legends and folk stories are the basic forms of human ancient literature, and folk stories have directly been turned into the morphological placenta of modern novels. The national and local characters represented by culture symbols and codes are always included in the unconscious progresses. Alai has used Tibetan folk culture resources spontaneously. According to the use of Tibetan folk literature, the novel has touched the deep consciousness field of Tibetan religions, customs, habits, mythologies and legends and also reflected the continuity of Tibetan history and memories on the social ground floor and the remains of its culture symbols and codes.2. Characters' image and structural Tibetan folk culture resources. This paper will use two sections to analyze the image and the angles of the "fool" in Dust Settled Down and also the "petal" structure of Tibetan folk literature resources in Void Mountains.(1). The image and angles of the "fool". Alai portrayed the second Master fool's image successfully, who was referred as "me" in Dust Settled Down. "I" am the second Master of the Maiqi Tusi's family and was created by Maiqi Tusi and his second wife after he was drunk, so I am stupid and foolish since I was born. "I" am honored but also insulted by others; it seems "I" am important but actually not; "I" am sentimental but also cold, kind but cruel too; "I" am stupid and smart, beyond and also in chaos; "I" am the participator and even planner of many important affairs but I am also a detached spectator; "I" am half foolish, it happens now and then, and even "stupidity" transfers in my body.The second master- the "fool"- is not only the teller but also the participator who has experienced the story. He is the double role of "I who tell story" and "I who am in the story" or "I who am in the memories and experiences". The "foolish" second master is both the determined candidate and competitor who plays very important role in the story and the detached spectator who is excluded of the power pattern. Moreover, the "fool" is mixing blood of Han people and Tibetan so he has the duality of cultural viewpoints and attitudes. He combines wisdom and stupidity, Han and Tibetan, things that others and he know, experiencing and telling self together.Alai says frankly that this image originates from the folk story of the wise Tibetan hero Agu Dunba, which he has put it successfully into his novel. The story of Agu Dunba is widespread in these Tibetans that live in Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan Provinces, most of them know it off by heart. It is even widely spread in some ethnic groups which are the neighbors of Tibetan. He is simple but smart, he has a bland appearance but there always is intelligence rayed out from him, he never planned or debated in mind in these whole stories but he cracked all these complicated codes by the simplest way that wise people could never come up with.(2). "Petal" structure in Void Mountains. The structure of Void Mountains is very occult. It is called as "petal" structure because it is composed by three volumes of long novels, and each volume is composed by six independent novellas. Here I call it as "Jigsaw puzzle" structure. All these six stories happened at the same places and these figures were almost the same but they had different positions in different stories. It is not a consistent story but a story with many center parts and clues. Alai says that he is not seeking for the breakthrough of the structures by choosing this structure but for expressing the exact villages he knows accurately. He says that all these village life just as jigsaw puzzle, we need to break the linear structure if we really want to portray the real villages.Obviously, this structure originates from Tibetan folk stories and Tibetan stories about wise figures. There are many folk stories about wise heroes that are widespread in ethnic groups of China. Such as stories about Agu Dunba (also called as Agu Dengba) are well known in Tibetans and also in some other ethnic groups that close to Tibetan. This novel is a series of stories that composed by many stories about Agu Dengba. Each of them is not at great length but with proper materials, contents, intensive forms and structures, also with a wonderful use of exaggerations, settings that help with the shaping of some characters' personalities.
Keywords/Search Tags:folk culture resources, long novels, Alai
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