The Changing of the Person in the Narration in Modern Chinese Literature and its Intellectual Implications

Abstract

Abstract: The person used in narration is an essential factor of narrative rhetoric, and it plays an important role in the construction and representation of the "realness" in a novel. The choice of the person in narration may, on the one hand, abide by the implicit imperatives which the historical context enforced on "realness," and closely links to the identity of the intellectual group who undertakes the task of narrating. The novels during the May 4th Movement in 1919 correspond to the spirit of individual liberation, and the following two decades saw the transformation to popularization and nationalization. The paper demonstrates that, among the modern Chinese novels produced during this thirty-year period, the choice of the person and the changes of the person use in narration are representative in the above mentioned two aspects. The paper concludes that the strategies behind the choice of the person provide a significant perspective for examining the complexity of modern Chinese literary field.

Key words: modern novel, the person in narration, realness, the intelligentsia, identity

Xie Huiying, Zhou Weiwei. The Changing of the Person in the Narration in Modern Chinese Literature and its Intellectual Implications[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(3): 203-209.

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