On The Cultural Standpoint In Lao She's Novel Creation

Lao She's cultural evaluation of "family mode" in his novels not only coincided with the great urgency to transform modern China from lack of cohesion under the influence of the steeped-in-history family-oriented cultural pattern,but also showed concern about "home" for its important role in maintaining social order and nurturing moral power.He took into consideration both the pros and cons rather than put a veto on all,which rendered his value judgment moderate.It is thus shown that Lao She has a unique value principle,namely "the principle of subjectivity" in handling the relationship between the individual and the collective as well as the degree to show individuality.This principle is well embodied in his quest for individual autonomy on the basis of emotional attachment to home and country.Lao She depicted "time-honored businesses" in his novels as a symbol of traditional culture and historic classics.In an overall situation where modernization invaded and transformed traditional Chinese culture,he judged those "time-honored" on the possibility of its persistence and cultural value according to its adaptability and usefulness.His values bears realistic feature which displays his philosophy of "practical reason".In Lao she's fictions,modern revolutionary movements were included in ethical category for consideration.On the one hand,he justified those life-saving,nation-protecting movements as rationality with "humanitarian morality" and "national morality";on the other hand,he noted the abuse of those movements as well as the resultant damage to traditional ethics.His judgment thereof features mutual inhibition which shows the checks-and-balances relationship between the new and old cultures in psychological dimension as well as the quest for this interplay in ideological aspect."Principle of subjectivity""practical reason" and"cultural checks and balances"constitute the ideological elements of Lao She's cultural reflection in his novel creation.The coexistence and highlight of the three interpret the distinctive cultural neutrality in him.The formation of his unique cultural position is bounded up with his personal life experience.First,Lao She as a social being entertained a deep yearning for both order and freedom.The combination of the both established him as part of the main forces with strong sense of moral responsibility in cultural reflection.Second,his life experiences as a poor Manchu in Beijing along with the formative impact of "practical philosophy" from within the poor accounted for his adoption of "practical reason" from psychological perspective.Furthermore,Lao She acted as a "bystander" in the May 4th Cultural Movement,thereby alienating from the radical mainstream of destroying the old and establishing the new at that moment.His physical inaction on the sidelines led to psychological inaction.This is the profound foundation on which his idea of cultural checks and balances took form.Rickshaw Boy is representative of Lao She's novels,which fully illustrates his cultural position.In the novel,Lao She maintained the critical and enlightening feature of the May 4th Movement,exposed the tragic facts in life of ordinary people and criticized the dross of culture based on cultural evils.Meanwhile,he also reflected on cultural crisis and envisaged the ideal form of cultural checks and balances.He expressed genuine concern for the whole nation on the basis of his persistence in subjectivity in his creation.This cultural orientation dominant in his creation endows Rickshaw Boy with a fresh look in the new literature.The literary value of this novel lies in the combination of literary individuality and cultural wisdom which also gives appropriate expression to the reevaluation of Lao She's fictions in the history of literature.