A Study Of Chinese Native Suspense Novels From The Perspective Of Post-modernism

After the 1980 s,the post-modernism trend of thought has fully impacted the global academic world.Postmodernism,while inheriting many concepts of modernism,has also greatly reduced the boundaries between art and daily life and blurred the distinction line between elegant literature and popular literature.For example,due to Dan Brown’s use of post-modern techniques,The Da Vinci Code has become a post-modernist novel suiting both refined and popular tastes,and it has also created a frenzy of suspense novel creation in China.However,as an “imported” writing style,suspense novel has existed for a relatively short time in China,so it cannot avoid some of the drawbacks such as being patterned or rough in writing.The thesis,from a post-modern perspective,seeks to observe the challenges faced by local Chinese suspense novels in the context of post-modernism,reveal the room for improvement,and put forward new expectations for them.This thesis will include the following four chapters and conduct in-depth discussions at progressive layers.First of all,in the introduction part,it briefly describes the situation of Chinese suspense novels,defines the concept of “postmodernism”,strengthens its cognition from the aspects of theoretical overview,stylistic features,and novel types,lays down the foundation for the contrasts made in the following part,and puts forward the theoretical goals for the writing of this thesis.The first chapter analyzes the post-modern features of The Da Vinci Code in detail.It is well-known that the typical combination of post-modernism and suspense fiction is The Da Vinci Code,and it has a huge impact on the suspense novels in China.Therefore,continuing the concept of "post-modernism" in the Introduction part,it presents the post-modernity in The Da Vinci Code from three aspects: theme,skills of expression and context.The second chapter takes The Da Vinci Code as the representative of western post-modernism suspense and combines the characteristics of the self-development of the China’ s local suspense novels to specifically discuss its influence on Chinese local suspense novels,in terms of the elements,discourses,and themes.The third chapter distinguishes suspense novel from some similar types of novel such as detective fiction and horror fiction.It clarifies that suspense novels take the suspense as the main line and are written taking suspense as the core.A textual analysis of two works of two contemporary representative suspense fiction writers Cai Jun and Zhou Haohui is conducted.Their post-modernity,as well as their superiority and shortcomings,that are seen from the perspective of post-modernism are clarified.Extending from such a small aspect,it is then discussed how Chinese local suspense novels can attract the eyes of theworld.The fourth chapter,which is the final chapter of this thesis,makes a concise summary and comments on the development prospects of local suspense novels based on their achievements.It points out that in fact,Chinese contemporary local suspense novels have been progressing and developing.It should be affirmed that it is developing on the shoulders of previous generations and learning from their experience to take the initiative in the global post-modern context.