Narrative Changes Of Revolutionary Historical Novels

The20th century war history of China has been an endless supply of resources for Chinese authors. Since1950s, Chinese writers have never stop thinking and narrating the war years. Considering that novel has large capacity and is suitable for expressing important historical events and characters’growth, authors usually choose novel as the main literary style to describe the revolutionary history. In general, the revolutionary historical novels of "Seventeen years" were products of the national political consciousness and revolutionary idea, reflecting the thought of "premising on class struggle". The Defense of Yan’an opened the river of the revolutionary historical narration and is regarded as a model. Under the background of new cultural context at the end of20th century, there was another wave of writing revolutionary history. On the basis of the revolutionary historical novels of "Seventeen years", the new ones which represented by Sword innovated in some ways, attempting to convey new views of war and people.By means of comparing The Defense of Yan’an and Sword, this thesis aims to discuss on the developing trend of revolutionary historical narration in different cultural context, and changes of narrative patterns and strategies of the two works.The relationship between the cultural context and literary creation is quite close. Different periods’concepts of history and hero could be reflected in their corresponding revolutionary historical works. In the special period of "Seventeen years", the Chinese Communist Party was pressed for letting the politicized literature prove its legitimacy of seizing the state power. Writers who paid attention to the reality wrote novels about the past war years, in which they sang the praises of great Chinese Communist Party, and workers, peasants and soldiers who are united and brave. In the21st century when mass culture has become popular, people’s attitudes of history are more objective and open. At the same time, they lose spiritual beliefs to some extent. In order to rouse national spirit and arouse the heroic complex in people’s heart, authors rewrote the revolutionary war which made a stir.The Defense of Yan’an and Sword were both the products of thematic culture. They were permeated with national spirit whose core is patriotism, had the epic narrative style, and both made a model for their contemporary revolutionary historical novels. Du Pengcheng aimed to narrating a revolutionary myth, while Du Liang attended to telling a story about a hero’s fate. Therefore, the two books are different in war narrative, hero shaping, and novel tone. With the comparison of their differences, we can understand each one’s significance of history and literature.Adapted to their times’ and readers’ demanding, The Defense of Yan’an and Sword expressed different stories about the revolutionary war with appropriate narrative strategies. The strategies that artistic reality, national style and revolutionary myth in The Defense of Yan’an were good to telling the glorious victory of the war, and to proving the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party in power. Du Liang made some skillful changes when he wrote Sword by using strategies, such as returning to daily life, body narration and banter. They not only reflected the essential request of the "red classics", but conformed to the changing historical trend.