A Comparison Between Kafka And Yu Dafu’s Novel Under The Context Of Modernity

Kafka is a famous Austrian writer, who is reputed to be the originator of modernist literature, and his works always reflect the dilemma of modern people. Yu Dafu is a representative in the period of the May Fourth, and his works are full of sentimental feelings, which also revealed hearts of intellectuals suffering course in half of the 20 th century. Because of the same times and the literature, their creations also have many similarities. Since the 20 th century, Modernity has become a keyword increasingly which cannot be ignored in the literary studies, Kafka and Yu Dafu’s novels have a distinct characteristic of modernity. Scholars always study the two separately by different angles. The studies involving comparative literature, but most focused on the analysis of the characters. Therefore, this paper was combining the theory of narrative study, modernity and the research methods of comparative literature from the perspectives of characters, cultural differences and social criticism. And it makes a comparison between Kafka’s ‘trilogy’ lonely and Yu dafu’s sink under the context of modernity. Therefore, it explore the similarities and differences between the two in modern issues, and draw the development and change of modernity in the new era.The full text is divided into five parts, the first part reviews the comparative study situation of Kafka and Yu Dafu and the exploration of modernity in order to find an research perspective and entry point of the paper. The second part discusses the sense of loneliness in the novels between the two, which results showed the complexity of the modern world and the spiritual anguish on modern people through comparative analysis. Under the impact of modernity, the individual has increasing distance from the people around them, and lonely have become people’s normal lives. The third part discusses the contradictions and choice under the cultural influences. The root of the contradiction is the effect of culture, cultural differences make caught conflicts on bicultural identity of individuals, that unable to extricate themselves, meanwhile, this conflict also showed contradictions between tradition and modernity, but also to the individual becoming a product of cultural tragedy. The Fourth part discusses the failed outcome, the death consciousness, the narrative intervention and the narrative reliability of the novel. It can concluded that both novels have some social criticism. Their novels focus on subjectivity, it seems to tell a personal tragedy, but in reality it was a reflection of universal reality through personal tragedy, imagining the big from the small, showing the criticism and thinking of the personal fate and social reality. The fifth part we summed up the whole paper. It can be seen the kind of development and change of modernity in the late 19 th and early 20 th century after a comparative analysis of both novels under the modern context. People come to see the negative impacts on all aspects of modernity, such as the people themselves and society, and people began to re-examine and reflexive modernity.