Abstract

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Title:: Cultural Revolution and Contemporary Vanguard Literature:Vanguard Writers’ Strategies for Cultural Revolution Narrativeand Their Literary Value

Keywords:: Chinese vanguard writers; narrative of the Cultural Revolution; trauma

Abstract:: The vanguard novels in the mid 1980s differ from the previous ones on the Cultural Revolution in the narrative strategy and thematic orientation. These novels are no longer the confirmation and echo of the mainstream discourse and do not take revelation and criticism of negative sides in the society as their value orientation any more. In terms of narrative strategy, the Cultural Revolution, which was once the main plot and theme of macro history-styled narrative, has been transformed into the background of the novels and into a history of absurd distortions and deformations: a realist description of Culture Revolution has given way to an exploration of the psychological, allegorical and symbolic dimensions of the movement. In terms of the value orientation, the vanguard writers focus on the examination of the trauma and stress inflicted by the Cultural Revolution, and thus the cultural memory and trauma of a generation in a specific historical period has been constructed in the form of absurd carnival words and metaphorically polysemous texts.