Folk-cusdom As Rhetoric

Folk custom is the source of the literature，so novels which contain plentiful social contentand folk customs are closely related and mutually dependent. In modern Chinese literary world,rural novels of1920’s and1930’s were one of the earlist formed schools of literature after theMay4th literary revolution. The typical representatives were Jian Xianai, Wang Luyan, Xu Jie,TaiJingnong, Peng Jiahuang, Xu Qinwen, Li Jinming etc. They were calling of The Times, andunder the influence of Luxun’s view of literature and folk, so they wrote their uniquegeographical feature of the local conditions and custom self-consciously, which made the genreof the novel text contains rich and colorful folk-custom content. Folk narrative became as the"writing symbol" of the rural novels. The group of writers had witnessed the modern urbancivilization, and they thought back on their remote home in the modern city. Under the differentspace, the authors clearly felt the distence of modern and backward, but they had no way to fogeta strong nostalgia for hometown. Then the text under the opposite of time and space, containedcomplex emotional content. On the one side writers in urban space described the country folk,criticizing the backward village, and conveyed to readers a kind of enlightenment, so that folknarrative had the rhetorical function of the enlightenment. One the other side authors alsodescribed the honest folkway and the kind of human nature under the rural space, so the folknarrative presented a pure unique local space out the historical sequence. Rural folk in theliterature implied the multiple meanings and its complexity was far beyond the binary structureof the traditional and modern. So this article on the theory of folklore, cultural anthropology,narrative rhetoric, starting from the writers’ rhetorical subject, the author of various rhetoricalskills of artistic rendering, focused on the folk-custom multivariate rhetoric function, byanalysising the narrative skills. So that I try to re-evaluate the folk custom in the rural novels ofthis period.In this paper, the main body part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is trying tosearch for the cause of folk narrative rhetoric: the background of the may fourth era culture, thecultural features of the folk custom and writers’ folk rhetoric consciousness. The second chapterfocuses on the enlightenmental theme of the folk rhetoric. Authors use plot sequencearrangement, the third person omniscient perspective, folk symbol to make the folk contentsenlightenment rhetorical function. Chapter iii focuses on the aesthetic space the customsconstruct. It mainly discusses the author guides the readers in the folk narrative to reflect on ruraldaily life space, regional culture space, as well as the local folk constructed space beyond thecategory of historical time, to exploit the other meanings out of the historical evolution. Chapteriv focuses on the "living soul" which the folk customs represented. It mainly discusses under thecondition of changes in rural China, time is evolution of indigenous space. Author leads thereader feel the emotional expression of rural life, humanity and the alienation ethical of thecountryside.