Chapter 47 Section 1 The Prosperity of Humanitarian Thought in Literary Creation

In China in the 20th century, humanity and humanitarianism have always been common and sensitive topics in literature. "Human Awakening" not only brought universal humanitarianism to the "May Fourth" new literature, but also formed a strong subject consciousness and distinctive personality characteristics of the new literature creation.Although the development of new literature in the future included many twists and turns, humanitarianism has always been the main ideological connotation and emotional support of excellent writers and excellent works. Since the 1950s, human nature and humanitarianism in literature have been regarded as heresy and heresy, and they have been attacked more and more severely in previous political movements. Theory", the independent thinking and artistic personality of writers are all denied, and they must be transformed and replaced by various unified thoughts and thinking modes in the political struggle.During the period of the Cultural Revolution, political and class characteristics became the only attributes of human beings and the only criteria for literary criticism, and humanitarianism was completely expelled from the field of literary and artistic creation.

The "Cultural Revolution" brought unprecedented and severe disasters to the Chinese people, the greatest of which was the harm and destruction of human nature by ideology under the rule of the ultra-left political line.In that era, people were no longer human beings, but were alienated into tools of "class struggle". Some people were forced to become "class enemies" and lost their qualifications to be human beings; Venting for beastliness also lost the dignity and self-love of being a human being. "People" has become an empty and arbitrary term, a fig leaf for those in power to implement cruel tyranny and seek political self-interest, while individual people have become "screws", completely losing the possibility of independent will. All kinds of inhumane tragedies that happened during the "Cultural Revolution", whether it was the arbitrary persecution of the high-ranking president to death, or the arbitrary ravaging of innocent people, the perpetrators were often the victims, and the victims would inevitably inadvertently injure The ugliness of human nature is fully exposed, but all of these are carried out under the will of the state and under the high-sounding slogan of "carrying forward the revolutionary tradition" and "strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat". After the "Cultural Revolution", people's painful memories of the ten-year catastrophe and reflection on history, the most important point is the rediscovery and re-understanding of "human beings". "People urgently need to restore human dignity and improve human value. 1. Literary and artistic creation after the "Cultural Revolution" consciously assumed this historical task from the very beginning.According to the law of development and progress of human society in Marxism, people in socialism should enjoy more human rights, more freedom and democracy than people in feudalism and capitalism, so they can play a better role in social life. Great initiative, enthusiasm and creativity, thus creating more material and spiritual wealth than the previous society.However, since the late 1950s, especially during the Cultural Revolution, socialism has been just the opposite. Human value and dignity, and the relationship between people have been regressing more and more. What is the reason for this?Thinking about this problem has become a content of many literary works.At the Fourth National Conference of Literature and Art held in 1979, writers put forward the viewpoints that "the flourishing of literature and art must eliminate feudal poison" and "people are the goal and the center". It affirmed that "scar literature" exposed the barbaric history of the Cultural Revolution, and it was also a prospect and call for literature in the 1980s.

What needs to be explained is that the humanitarian trend of thought that prevailed in China from the late 1970s to the early 1980s was, first of all, a broad social trend of thought that affected all aspects of social life during this period. Many fields of art have different degrees of reflection, and even spread to the fields of economy and science and technology.At that time, the discussion on humanitarianism was quite heated in the ideological and theoretical circles.Since 1980, in the following four or five years, the theory of human nature and humanitarianism have been the topics of academic concern, involving many disciplines such as philosophy, literature and art, psychology, and ethics. The concept and connotation of human nature, human nature and Class nature, Marxism and humanitarianism, humanitarianism and literature in the new era were discussed. Although this discussion was not further developed due to the intervention of political factors, the discussion in the ideological and theoretical circles also had a certain enlightening effect on literary creation. .Correspondingly, the affirmation and emphasis on human nature and humanitarianism in literary creation at that time always played a leading and key role in the humanitarian thought trend in the ideological field.That is to say, in the whole social trend of thought, literature has gone far beyond its original functional scope, and has undertaken the tasks of other disciplines, which has attracted the whole society's particularly strong attention to literature, including political ideology. intervention.

From the perspective of creative practice, the affirmation of humanity and humanitarianism in literature is reflected in specific literary phenomena. The so-called "scar literature" first of all exposes the trauma suffered by people's spirit and body during the "Cultural Revolution"; The so-called "reflective literature" is, first of all, thinking about the fate of people and the relationship between people. The exposure of historical wounds by "scar literature" is based on people's basic rights of survival. The short story "The Story of Old Man Xing and the Dog" to be introduced below is an indictment of inhumanity through the tragic fate of small people. The principle of humanity is not a direct presentation of the rational thinking of intellectuals, but is expressed in the form of folk friendship by means of the narrator's recounting of other characters' sympathy for the old man Xing.

It is Dai Houying's novel "Man, Man" that puts forward the concept of human nature and humanitarianism directly through the mouth of the characters, or even through the author's arguments.The novel takes the ever-changing history from the anti-rightist struggle in 1957 to the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China as the background. conflicts between.Although the conception of the work still has a conceptual shadow of confrontation between positive and negative armies, and there is a tendency for ideas to be greater than images, after all, the author is the first to boldly put forward the proposition of human nature and humanitarianism in literary creation after the "Cultural Revolution", and the novel The psychological consciousness structure and the conversion method of the first-person narrative tried in the form make up for the deficiency caused by being too ideal to a certain extent.Before and during the "Cultural Revolution", the author was once confused by the so-called "class struggle" theory, and participated in the criticism of the literary theorist Qian Gurong's view that "literature is human learning". Now, she is awakened, and she In the "Postscript", he simply used his own language to directly express the understanding and appeal of an awakened intellectual to human nature:

"Finally, I realized that I had been playing a tragic role in comedy form: a man who had been deprived of his freedom of thought and thought he was the freest; a man who flaunted his spiritual shackles as a beautiful collar; a I have lived most of my life without knowing myself and finding my own person. I stepped out of the role and found myself. It turns out that I am a person with flesh and blood, love and hatred, emotions and thinking ability. I should have my own human value , should not be degraded, and should be degraded into a tame tool.... A capital text quickly pushed before my eyes: 'People!' A long-abandoned and forgotten song rushed out of my throat: Humanity , favor, humanitarianism!" 3

These words were uttered by a confessor, and they really played a deafening effect at the time, and it is conceivable that they were criticized and debated by academic circles at the same time. As a part of human nature, love is the theme that many writers focus on expressing and discussing, and it is also an important manifestation of humanitarian thoughts in literary creation.China is a nation with a long and profound feudal cultural tradition, and love based on individuality has always been suppressed by feudal ethics.The over-emphasis and exaggeration of class nature during the Cultural Revolution made the relationship between people absurdly simplified into two types: "comrades" of the same class, "brothers of the class" and mortal enemies of the opposite class, thus making the normal feelings between men and women Yi Gai regards it as "bourgeois and petty bourgeois thinking", the word "love" has almost disappeared in life, and has been replaced by other inexplicable languages ​​in literature.Now it may be difficult for us to understand the shock that the word "love" brought to readers when it was uttered from ordinary people or used to describe ordinary people.The first is to fight for the right to love with confidence.So there is Liu Xinwu's "Love's Position", which fights for a place for love for young people in real life; and Zhang Xuan's "The Corner Forgotten by Love", it is precisely through the analysis of a pair of rural youths who fell into water because of love during the Cultural Revolution. The story of the prison reveals the tragedy caused by killing the love between men and women.Zhang Jie's "Love Cannot Be Forgotten" goes deep into the fields of marriage, love and ethics, and raises the relationship between marriage and love, which has a long-term impact on human life.The protagonist Zhong Yu in the novel lives with his daughter after divorce, but has been deeply in love with an old cadre who has no love but has a harmonious family life for a long time.Through the love tragedy of the characters, the novel reflects a common abnormal phenomenon: marriage without love and love that is not respected, and uses this to analyze the stubbornness of some social ethics and morals, showing that "only love-based Marriage is moral," a serious but idealistic theme.From fighting for everyone's right to love, to discussing what is the real, should be chosen, and moral love, Zhang Jie has obviously taken another step forward in her thinking about love.

With the deepening of ideological and theoretical exploration and the further development of literary creation, writers have become more and more clear about the division between the ideal state of human nature and the reality.Therefore, describing the real situation of life, reflecting and thinking about the dilemma between ideal and reality, makes the humanitarian thought trend in literature go beyond the simple value judgment, and truly shows the independent and sober spirit of exploration.This enables writers to reflect the specific spirit of the times from the perception and echo of humanitarian thoughts, and then gradually acquire relatively personal experience methods, perspectives and stylistic styles.

The female writer Tie Ning's "Oh, Xiangxue" casts an affectionate glance at the girls in remote mountain villages towards the civilization beyond the mountains and their hazy vision for future ideals, and at the same time leaves a series of serious thoughts for the readers. How long can the pure and warm yearning for the scenery of the mountain village be preserved in the advancement of modern civilization?But Zhang Jie continued her thinking along the train of thought of ideal love and actual encounter. The three women in "Ark" all have their own pursuit of ideal love, but they are all losers in the reality of love.They have gone beyond the simple pursuit of ideal love, and they found that love is not the whole of life; and in realizing the value of life, women have to bear more things than men, so between love and the overall value of people, they They would rather choose the latter, but this is a painful and lonely choice; not only that, but their choice has plunged themselves into a new alienated situation again, where is their way out?The author did not provide a clear answer, but the tragic color of the work is quite strong.It is worth noting that these two authors showed the awakening of women's gender consciousness from different angles and methods, especially Zhang Jie's courageous exploration, which in fact became the forerunner of feminist literature in the new era.

The perception and response of literature to humanitarian thought started from the affirmation of the most basic right of human existence, and finally came here after going through such a tortuous course.This is a continuous breakthrough of the previous concept of human nature, a continuous approach to the individuality and uniqueness of literature, and the only way for literature to lead to a pluralistic state.