Chapter 27 Chapter 8 Background and Presentation of the Theme of Routineization

In fact, literary expressions about daily life abound in the development of Chinese literature.It is a typical representative work.Use the description of daily life to grasp social changes, and express the ups and downs of fate and spiritual world of characters in the era.The emphasis on daily life in literature in the new era can be seen as a continuation of the theme.It's just that the writing of daily life in the past 30 years is more complicated, whether it is the exploration of the characters' spiritual world or the use of borderline techniques. In the early days of the new era, the most heated discussion among literary critics on literary creation techniques was whether to use irrational psychological description techniques from the West. Critics cautiously expressed their views on foreign modernist literature, affirming its artistic value. At the same time, he also showed a reserved attitude of dodging left and right, as if he was afraid that the big wave would hit the rocks again.Although relatively speaking, writers have been allowed to cover a wider range of themes expressed in literature, and the critics’ attitude towards this is relatively clear, but they seem to be interested in the question of whether and how the field of daily life should enter the page of literature. There are very few.There are probably three reasons: first, daily life has never completely disappeared in literary and artistic works, and the truth that there is no art without life must be argued; second, the daily life of Chinese people has long been subject to the control of political ideology, Taking daily life as an object to discover and excavate has not really become a kind of conscious self-awareness; third: it has not yet found a theory and thought that can help people lift themselves out of daily life and reflect on themselves, Therefore, the literary treatment of trivial daily life still stays at the surface level of self-repetitive life.Writers are still unable to explore its value layer, or more directly, the literary values ​​of the past 20 years are still working.Since the new era, due to the loosening of political shackles, literary works have gradually appeared to reflect more of daily life. Critics said with concern: "Recently some authors are either recalling the past, or talking about anecdotes; Mountains, rivers, trees, stones, lingering; or trivial things around us, daily necessities, rice, oil, salt, small but forgetting the big...There are thousands of kinds, only one is out, that is, the national destiny and the people's troubles, big right and wrong." (1) And the new era has arrived, and no one can stop it The pace of diversification of literary values.From the end of the 1980s to the present, a large number of literary works have given us the best proof.

The New Content of the Literary Value of Daily Life Since the 1980s In the early 1980s, the themes of Chinese literary works had shown a rich and diverse trend. "The tendency of political conceptualization and the visual footnotes of policy provisions" began to be abandoned by writers, and creators were facing life with a new attitude.At this time, the class struggle is over, and the contradictions between ourselves and the enemy have been replaced by contradictions among the people.When the political atmosphere like a thick fog that shrouded people's eyes gradually dissipated, daily life showed its true face magnificently, like a vast continent reappearing in the world.Literary creators can finally return to the world of life, facing the vast land of life, "Dare to write about the fields and characters that were not dared to write in the past, and the life that was distorted in the past has returned to its original colors. "Up" and "uplifting" heroes, now send heroes and newcomers back to the real world. In the past, they always emphasized the process and scenes of major struggles, but now they know how to look at society from the window of the family, and political and economic changes from the entanglement of love. From the anatomy of the relationship of ethics, in the past good was good, bad was bad, each in its place, and never changed. Now we respect the dialectics and complexity of life, "There is bad in good, and there is good in bad"... In the final analysis, it is still The relationship between literature and life is normalized." (2)

The normalization of this relationship between literature and life also requires a process. After practice-argument-re-practice, the scenes of daily life and ordinary people in life gradually replace the scenes of revolutionary struggle and heroes in previous literary works, which belong to literature. The vivid and lively language of daily life also gradually expelled political discourse from literature and regained its position.More importantly, the content of daily life in previous works served the so-called "heroic" and "noble" grand historical narratives. Daily life itself has no value and significance to be tapped. The important object of literature's attention and expression, it will refuse to appear as a secondary scene only as a foil to the theme.For literature in the new period, daily life shows its unprecedented literary value.

Daily life has truly become the object of description that people are increasingly concerned about, which is closely related to the return of the creative subject consciousness.When life loosens the shackles of political ideology and becomes fresh and active, the creative consciousness of the creative subject is also liberated at the same time.The vision of creation becomes broadened, the thinking becomes more flexible, and the themes become more abundant.Social life has finally entered an era of pragmatism and practicality. "The implementation of this sincere attitude in all aspects of social life has formed a trend of the times that is completely different from the past. It has regained the openness of society. Life, that is to say, reaffirms the value of human beings, and affirms the various possibilities and essential powers of human beings in creating reality. Therefore, the rhythm of our entire life begins to maintain the same frequency as the world rhythm with the background of the new era of science. We and The world that has been unfamiliar for a long time has communicated." (3) With the end of the days of "directed writing" and "task writing", writers slowly revived their stiff wings, and under the excitement of opening their arms to embrace freedom and singing loudly, at the same time Accompanied by painful reflections on the Cultural Revolution, reflections on the relationship between politics and literature and art, reflections on people, a new understanding of self, and so on.The complex intertwining of emotions and rationality made the literature of this period once again positioned on "human beings", and began to explore and excavate humanity and the spiritual world of "human beings" in many aspects.

The re-examination of the true essence of human beings and the re-grasp of self-life experience have become the most important and profound goals of literary creation since the writer's creative subject consciousness returned.How false and blunt is the creation of the past that centered on class struggle and kept away from the real life.Literature is not the sounding board of politics, nor is it a tool for "moral" preaching to all living beings, and it is impossible for literature to shoulder too heavy a responsibility of enlightenment and salvation, and literature is literature itself.The holy hat can only crush its wings to fly.The turning point of the times has led to the adjustment of the literary creation concept of the creative subject. At the same time, new Western artistic concepts have flooded into China again, deeply affecting the literary concepts of contemporary writers. "Life School" artists, they pay attention to the artistic discoverability contained in all the details of daily life, they put forward the aesthetic concept of "art and life without boundaries", and believe that "everything in life is the best art, street noise It is the best music, the communication between the spacecraft and the ground is better than Beethoven’s movement, and the daily necessities everywhere and the rags in the trash can contain the highest aesthetic value.” (4) This artistic concept reminds us: once, How much we ignore the content of life that can unearth art treasures.

Ordinary people are the most vivid embodiment and the most fundamental carrier of the national spirit.Therefore, on the one hand, the variation of the images of ordinary people reflects the changes of the national spirit, and on the other hand, it shows the social environment of different times and the different stages of development of literature. From the founding of the People's Republic of China to the end of the Cultural Revolution, most of the literary images during this period were "heroism".It was the fashion of the literature at that time to mold heroes passionately and express lofty aspirations.Although there are still many works describing ordinary people in the "seventeen years of literature", due to the direct drive of the concept of the times, the writers always try their best to dig out and highlight ordinary people from the standpoint of depicting heroes. The factors in people that can be elevated to heroism. As a result, the image of ordinary people is also heroic. This is not so much the image of ordinary people as it is the popularization of heroes.” (5) When the writer turns his attention to In the field of daily life, literary works will inevitably break the previous mode of leading the role of heroes and restore the protagonist status of ordinary people in life.

The spiritual essence of ordinary people in the literary works of the new period has undergone great changes.The performance of ordinary characters in daily life is often: in the face of the current complicated real world, in order to obtain the conditions for survival, they do not rely on aggressive spirit to grasp, but rely on various unavoidable compromises, failures or even sacrifices. to exchange.This is really a manifestation of the degeneration and shrinkage of the national spirit in the face of strength.This reflects that while the material age erodes the spiritual world of most individuals, it also erodes the body of the national spirit.This is the greatest harsh social reality that the national soul has discovered.The image of ordinary people no longer possesses the sublimity of "heroes" or potential heroes politically or morally, but becomes mediocre and mundane.When readers read literary works, they no longer experience the characters as heroes, but understand the images as ordinary people and feel as a comparison of the true self, so that literature is more approachable than ever.At the same time, the inherent practical relationship between people and reality in daily life is truly reproduced. From ordinary people, the depth of human nature, human essence, and human existence value that we have dug out even exceeds The depth carried by the image of the hero.In addition, "the images of ordinary people in literature in the new era have highlighted the practical spirit of artistic dialectics... On the basis of this philosophical thought, the opposition in habitual thinking between the images of heroes and ordinary people in literature and art is actually It has been eliminated. The two are fundamentally connected with each other, there is no distinction between high and low, no noble or vulgar. Nowadays, even when describing heroes, writers try to tap the ordinary people in heroes.” (6 ) From the beginning of the new period, the concept of contemporary literature and art has undergone substantial changes.The old rules of heroism and the model of leading the role of heroes have all been broken, and literature has begun to pay close attention to the living conditions of ordinary people.It is no longer important whether the artistic image is a good person or a bad person, whether it is good or evil. What is important is to consider whether literature conforms to the laws of art.It should be pointed out that "the rise of the image of ordinary people represents the rise of new concepts of contemporary literature in our country, and the real artistic practice has begun." (7)

The rich levels of daily life, its complexity, randomness, and variability provide writers with a broad space for artistic practice.Writers are no longer satisfied with a single traditional realistic artistic expression, and their urgent mood urges them to learn from and learn from the creative experience of modern western writers.Symbolism, stream of consciousness, deformation, absurdity and other modernist literary thoughts and techniques that have been criticized in foreign literature have been adopted again.The artistic characteristics of these techniques do not need to be elaborated here, but I just want to explain: Western modernist literature particularly emphasizes the personal feeling, impression, consciousness, and existence of the creative subject in the first place, and pays attention to the purity and independence of art.This creative principle, which attaches great importance to individual creative consciousness and aesthetic feeling, and the decisive attitude against literature as a vassal of anything else, just provides a strong creative theoretical basis for restoring the appearance, status, and value of literature itself, and awakens Chinese writers. It provides a powerful way to revive the subject consciousness that has been suppressed for a long time and is almost suffocated, and to highlight the writer's own personality.

New artistic techniques are very beneficial to express people's subjective feelings in daily life. The fragmented and incoherent experience and impression that life brings to people requires writers to use more expressive techniques besides realism.For example, the stream of consciousness, which is particularly able to show the variety and rich diversity of ordinary life experience, and at the same time "also presents those trivial and trivial things. The artistic effect it creates is a kind of gurgling, twists and turns, and erratic The fluidity of uncertainty and the immediacy that is reflected directly in front of the reader's eyes". (8) Stream-of-consciousness novels have indeed become a kind of psychological depiction favored by novelists since the new era. This technique is typically used in the works.The complex relationship between people in daily life and people’s different perspectives on things can also be reflected and reflected through multi-perspective narratives, such as Gao Xingjian’s, which is composed of different narrators’ narrations. Speaking of the narrative tradition formed by Chinese vernacular novels since then, it is not only a succession, but also a breakthrough.Especially since the 1990s, attention to daily life has gradually constituted the main imagination space of literature.When the continuity of daily life is broken, it reflects the impact of certain changes on people's normal life. In terms of emotions and psychology, this kind of break brings people the inexplicable fear and sense of impermanence. Literary creation can also be achieved through continuous texts The sudden interruption and the mixture of overall narrative and fragmentation express this emotion.