Timely And Vivid Ideological Education

The White Haired Girl is one of the "Red Classics" that spans a long history of75 years,it has been processed and modified from the mouth of the villagers and the hands of literary and art workers,and it has spread and migrated from local to political and cultural center gradually.The writing of The White Haired Girl had spanned many artistic categories,from the allegorical opera of the Yan’an period,and the film in the 1950 s that emphasized the new regime and the affinity to the people,to the well-known ballet.This dissertation refers to the diachronic stylistic changes and edition evolutions of The White Haired Girl in different art categories as the "multiple variations",and takes the "multiple variations" as the research object,trying to present the process of “variations"(what were the changes? Why did they changed? What kind of political and historical will does it show?)To reveal the complex interactions between the folk popular culture,the critical rationality of the May Fourth and the discourse of the socialist revolution,thereby to get a comprehensive understanding of the complex growth mechanism of contemporary literature.This dissertation borrows and transforms three words "timely","vivid" and "ideological education" from Xin Li’s commentary in the 1940 s.In this way,this dissertation connect the "multiple variations" of The White Hair Girl organically.Here,the word "timely" metaphors the timely pressure of The White Hair Girl(to be specific,including the Yan’an period,the “Seventeen-years” period and the "Cultural Revolution" period);the word "vivid" means literary space of The White Hair Girl(dramatic,human feelings and the daily writing);“ideological education" refers to the political demands of The White Hair Girl,especially for the imagination and expectation of socialist China.This dissertation has four chapters.Chapter 1 focuses on the adaptation of The White Haired Girl from folklore into opera.The folklore The White Haired Fairy has broad narrative potential,such as the pursuit of equality between men and women and doing away with all fetishes and superstitions.Opera The White Haired Girl successfully combined the folklore withthe theme of class struggle,showed the necessity and legitimacy of socialist revolution,formed the classic "oppression—consciousness-resistance" style of national narrative structure.The opera script had been revised several times,while keeping close to the appreciation habits and aesthetic needs of audience,it had realized the political function of calling on people to participate actively in revolutionary movements and construction of new China.Since then,the "multiple variations" of The White Haired Girl are mainly based on opera,this phenomenon indicates a mode of "looking back".It is because the Yan’an Literature and Art is the core and "origin" of the first three decades of Chinese contemporary literature.In the process of adaptations and variations of The White Haired Girl,the features and images of the socialist new China have become more and more clear.Chapter 2 focuses on the variation of The White Haired Girl from national opera to film.While gaining high box office at home,film The White Haired Girl had become a diplomatic name card for the whole world to understand the new Socialist China.On the basis of opera,film The White Haired Girl builded and consolidated the historical legitimacy and authority of the new regime.Compared with opera,film The White Haired Girl highlighted the theme of love,showing the new spiritual outlook of the new Socialist China.While eulogizing the new regime,film The White Haired Girl unfolded new imagination of China’s rural society,aroused the sense of identity and belonging of laboring people as "masters of the country".Thus the film reminded people not to forget the kindness of the Communist Party,and called for active participation in socialist production and construction.Chapter 3 focuses on the adaptation of the Beijing Opera edition and the modern revolutionary ballet edition of The White Haired Girl.The Peking Opera was performed in the period of "the great leap forward",and the performance effect was not as good as expected,it was an unremarkable spray in the river of "multiple variations" of The White Haired Girl.The ballet The White Haired Girl was born in1964,it is the climax of the "multiple variations".It shows the socialist new China requisitioned and transformationed of western art forms(ballet and symphony)to express the strong assertiveness and creativity.With highly essential characters and plot design,the ballet The White Haired Girl shapes the artistic model of the peasantsand proletarian heroes,"class struggle" replaces the opera theme of "the old society turned people into ghosts,and the new society turned ghosts into people".The ballet The White Haired Girl weakened the love element in the film,as a result,the suppressed libido turned to the shaping the "model" in the radical revolutionary.Summary concludes the complex interaction between timely pressure,literary space and political demands inside and outside the text of The White Haired Girl,and summarizes the enduring methods of the variations of The White Haired Girl.