Contradiction And Anxiety In The Modernization Drive

Lu Yao, a contemporary Chinese realistic writer, has been wandering around the overlapping region between city and countryside and has given us a panorama of people's life and struggle on the "Yellow Land" in the new period. By creating a host of characteristic and typical images of countryside educated youths, his works have greatly enriched the gallery of China's contemporary literature. He is attracted both by the civilized city life and the traditional yet moral country life. Puzzled by the conflicts and collision between the tradition and modernization generated during the social progress, Lu struggled in a dilemma. His works depict the anxiety and contradictory psychology of people at that time, which is where the permanent artistic charm lies in.A research review and the reasons to write this essay are covered in the Introduction.The main body is divided into three parts, intending to discuss the decisions Lu has made in the conflict between tradition and modern civilization. The first part mainly describes the painful choices people made along with the social modernization progress. Based on the historical and social background, combined with the discussion of the situation at home and abroad as well as writer's psychological and cultural background, it is believed that the characters in Lu's works are all facing a dilemma of making either active or passive choices. The second part analyzes some of Lu's major works in his two creation periods. By depicting the struggling progress of the countryside educated youths between the country and city and between the traditional morality and modern civilization, this part tries to explore Lu's thoughts and deeds in this contradiction and anxiety brought by the modernization progress and it is argued that these contradiction and anxiety belong to both the characters and the writer himself. The third part starts with his realistic way of writing and then analyses the typical characters of the countryside educated youths in the overlapping region between the city and countryside. By comparing his works to the other contemporary realistic works in the "17 years" period like Starting an Undertaking (by Liu Qing) and Ancient Ship(by Zhang Wei), the author attempts to dig the artistic charm of Lu's works.Lu Yao's works are of significant importance in the Chinese contemporary literature history. The subjects of his works focus on the conflicts between the modern civilization and traditional ethics generated during the social modernization. His works cover the conflicts between the pursuing of material life and keeping the traditional ethics which have covered one of the most widespread and intensive contradictions that human society has encountered. This contradiction will be permanent as the human society moves forward. At the same time, Lu Yao shook off the political shell frame from the "17 years" literature period and battled it out from various literature schools and sticked to his own distinctive character. He remained the realistic writing yet made new contribution to the traditional one. All those features and uniqueness have made his works to be on a higher level of permanent artistic charm.