Time In Guo Xiaodong’s Novels

The literary interpretation of time, especially the study of time in novels, is a new literary proposition and the literary explanation of time has been wonderful throughout the history in the texts of literature and art. The art of the novel, in the general sense, is actually the art of time. The view of linear time and the cycle time that Wu Guosheng puts forward as well as the nature of time that Hawking, Borges and others explain, to a certain extent, shows the subtle connection between time and the novels.Based on the previous views of time, Guo Xiaodong puts forward a philosophical proposition of “imaginary time”, meaning that time is more than just a way of dating, but also a narrative carrier which can be felt, known, seen and touched; time is also one of the important roles wandering between reality and existence, the basic attitude of modernist fiction, and the conditions of timeliness which helps make up a novel’s setting, and the independent character which converts the nothingness of reality into the being of existence. Guo Xiaodong’s twelve novels effectively confirm and embody his view of time.As a famous “educated youth” critic and writer, Guo Xiaodong has devoted himself to studying and applying the theories of the “educated youth literature”for several tens of years, and accomplished great achievements. There are large numbers of researchers studying his works both at home and abroad, but they have focused more attention on the “educated youth” and its extended topic.This paper attempts to reproduce the proposition of educated youth in the long river of time from the perspective of “time” to make a connection between the theme in the literature of “educated youth” and the entire human motif and look for the natural origin of the literary plot and time. The introduction is mainly to trace the source of time theory, interpreting the relationship between time and literature, time and novels; The first chapter puts forward problems on how Guo Xiaodong’s twelve novels have experienced time changes and how time has presented fragmentation in his works during the long time; The second chapter focuses on how the literary theme becomes realized through time in Guo Xiaodong’s novels; and the last chapter explores how time obtains the quality ofeternality in Guo Xiaodong’s works on the basis of the first two chapters.