Wang Anyi’s Shanghai Stories Of The "1990s" And Their Bourgeois Ideology

This thesis first reviews the two phases of Wang Anyi’s Shanghai stories since the "1990s" and their relations to the so-called "End of the’1990s’." On this premise, it studies Wang Anyi’s Shanghai bourgeois stories of the "1990s." From a retrospective point of view, it analyzes how these stories, mostly novels, help to establish the bourgeois ideologies of the "1990s.’Methodologically, this thesis makes use of Moretti’s "sociological formalism" and Jameson’s "political unconscious" as its critical methods. Through the form analysis of Wang Anyi’s novels, it reads Wang Anyi between history and literature. approaching the historical unconscious by textual forms.Since Wang Anyi exploits various knowledge resources in her novels, this thesis also uses different kinds of concepts, ranging from urban theory, psychoanalysis, the idea of natural-history, and classical Chinese philosophy, to understand Wang Anyi’s works.The first chapter provides a brief image of Shanghai bourgeoisie in Wang Anyi’s novels in the "1990s," discussing the relationship between the bourgeois and its spaces. The starting point of the second chapter is the historical condition of the Chinese bourgeoisie, since Wang Anyi realized and depicted their weakness in modern Chinese history.However, by examining her novels’idea of time, this paper wants to prove that Wang Anyi hoped to call for a new generation of Chinese bourgeois in the 1990s. The third chapter discusses Wang Anyi’s urban utopia, studying her ideal city/citizen conditions. The concluding chapter analyzes why Wang Anyi’s utopia is a type of ideology of the "1990s."...