An Analysis On How The Postmodern Theories Influence The Avant-garde Novels In 1980s

In the 1980s, as a result of the reform and opening up policy in China, various ideological trends of western literature have entered. Among these, modernism and postmodernism theory has been more attractive than others, as a result of its novelty and bizarreness. During this period, Chinese contemporary authors were eager to find new contents to break through the constraints of traditional theories. As a result, Avant-garde Novels started to gain popularity.Avant-garde Novels reflects that in the literature field of that new era, there were relentless self-adjustments, self-changes, abandoning tradition and attempts to restructure the mode of writing and value orientation. This is to cater for the challenges of changes of time. The famous writer in that era includes Ma Yuan, Yu Hua, Ge Fei, Sun Ganlu, Can Xue, Mo Yan, Hong Feng, Za Xi Da Wa, etc.This thesis will be sub-divided into three sections, which are summarised below:Section 1 discussed the origin of Avant-garde Novels from both international and local environments. At the end of 20th century, the west has been heavily affected by World War II. Humanity, rational and faith has been shaken and aesthetic inclination has been changing slowly. Postmodernism has become increasingly visible. The reform and opening up policy of China provides the possibility of postmodernism entering into China. Chinese scholars have absorbed the essences of postmodernism and apply those into China’s local context. As a result of these, Avant-garde Novels with postmodernism traits and local flavour has been invented.Section 2 focused on the postmodernism traits of contemporary Avant-garde Novels from both narrative and language aspects. Narrative revolution has been discussed from metafiction, absurdity, parody and collage aspects. On the other hand, writers of Avant-garde Novels use language as the only tool to explain the world. This helps to highlight that Avant-garde Novels is purely a word game to the writers.Section 3 mainly discussed the success and failure of Avant-garde Narration. Avant-garde Novels’ Narration experiments attracts extensive attention from the readers due to its unique posture. However, while attaining remarkable achievements, it has fallen into the trap which was originated from itself.This thesis tried to discuss the value of innovation and contribution of Avant-garde Narration’s in the development of literature in the new era, from the perspective of a researcher of literature theory.