The Cultural Revolution was like a nightmare. After waking up, I still can't erase the pain in my memory. Especially in the late 1960s, the vigorous movement of intellectuals going to the countryside shocked China and even the world. Countless young people have been involved in this movement, which itself is intertwined with right and wrong, solemnity and absurdity, beauty and ugliness, experiencing the mixture of warmth and coldness of human feelings, harshness and warmth, and hope and despair. Life and death passed by, and laughter and tears spilled down my cheeks. The emergence of "scar literature" was directly caused by this unavoidable event in China, which mainly described the tragic experiences of educated youth, intellectuals, persecuted officials and ordinary people in urban and rural areas in that unforgettable era.
For example, the origin of Scar Literature and the Head Teacher were published by Beijing-born writer Liu in People's Literature 1977,No. 1 1. At that time, critics believed that the main value of this short story was to expose the "mental internal injuries" caused by the "distortion" of a considerable number of teenagers' souls during the Cultural Revolution. (2) Some people even think that the call of the times to "save children persecuted by the Gang of Four" echoes the call of Lu Xun to save children poisoned by feudal ethics in Diary of a Madman 60 years ago, which makes. (3) The origin of the name "Wound Literature" is related to another short story "Wound" which is widely read and debated. The author of this novel is Lu Xinhua, and it was published in Wen Wei Po on August 1978+0 1. In the sense of "reflecting the seriousness of people's internal injuries" and "calling for healing wounds", it was recognized by people who promoted the new changes in literature at that time. Subsequently, novels that exposed the historical trauma of the Cultural Revolution emerged one after another, among which works by young intellectuals, such as Holy Mission (Wang Yaping), Noble Pine Tree (Wang Songhan), Soul Struggle (Wu Qiang), Dedication (Lu) and Marriage (Kong Jiesheng), and Cong's Red Magnolia under the Wall, had great influence. The rural "scar literature" represented by Zhou Keqin's Xu Mao and his daughters. Some critics believe that the novel Bloody Dusk (Old Ghost), published as late as 1986, should also be regarded as a work belonging to this scope. (4)
As far as artistic content is concerned, most of the early "scar novels" regard going to the countryside as an unbearable nightmare. The works are full of bitter and tragic life turns in the past years, ugliness, deception, deception and using each other to betray and fool the beautiful feelings of human beings. Their tone is basically a catharsis of grievances, "showing the catastrophe of the motherland in turmoil and showing moral conscience in tragic times." (5) All this shows a strong denial and criticism of the ultra-left line and policies in the past. It involves personal experience and emotion, with strong sadness, and the confusion, loss, depression and hesitation about the present and the future are full of works. This kind of sentimental mood was deepened in the later "reflective literature" and became a conscious pursuit and endeavor for deep thinking about individuals, society, life and the future. It not only blamed a mixed movement of sacredness and absurdity on society and politics, but also began to explore the relationship between personal tragedy or fate and the whole social background.
From the perspective of artistic aesthetics, the early "scar literature" did not achieve high artistic achievements. People who just woke up from a nightmare can't wait to tell. They are too emotional, too emotional, too eager to tell, too utilitarian to expose ugliness, too preaching, too naive and artificial in art, and the axe chisel marks are obvious.
Since the birth of "scar literature", the debate on its comments has never stopped, and even triggered several famous literary debates in the history of contemporary literature.
"Wound literature" is a derogatory term. The sentimental and tragic emotional tone of these works and the tendency of revealing materials are regarded by some critics as the repetition of "exposing literature" and "writing the dark side" in the 1950s and 1960s. (6) Therefore, from the summer of 65438 to the autumn of the following year, there was a heated debate around the works such as Scar. The social functions of literature and art, ideology and literature and art have been debated and contested again. 1979 65438+ 10 Chen published Instrumentalism or Reflection Theory-On the Relationship between Literature and Politics in Drama Art, and in April of the same year, Shanghai literature critic wrote an article "Innovating literature and art-refuting the theory that literature and art are tools of class struggle", both of which strongly refuted the statement that literature and art are purely functional political vassals.
But it is meaningful that when we re-examine these works of "scar literature" today, we will find that no matter how the original debate turns between affirmation and negation, in the social and cultural system of unified aesthetic ideology, "although we try to break free, we still inevitably have an old historical mark." In the past, no matter the theme of the writer, the theme of the text, the narrative mode and the image rhetoric of the characters, they all reflected the stubborn historical influence "(7). And from the political aesthetic form. "Scar Literature" undoubtedly inherited the political will of that era.
The debate about realism has always revolved around the "authenticity" of realism, and gradually deepened in the concrete analysis of related works. The fact that realism returned was the way of aesthetic "speech" at that time, which was highly consistent with the political speech at that time in the aspects of "history" (Cultural Revolution), self-exploration (reflection) and pursuit and progress in the future (reforming literature). Obviously, we deny the subordinate position of literature as a political mouthpiece, but we also understand that literature and art can not completely get rid of the shackles of politics and power discourse at the moment when they are in line with reality. Even if "scar literature" exists as a trend of thought without political factors, it is not only inexplicable, but also meaningless. It is also an indisputable fact that the cultural value and political choice of "scar literature" are highly consistent with people's expectations, and that literary speech is consistent with political speech.
At the same time, the later mature "scar literature" works, such as Life in the Bamboo Forest, Years Wasted in Ye Xin, Young People of Our Generation and Feng Jicai's works, generally show concern for human nature, and conduct in-depth exploration and discussion on human nature, which triggered the largest-scale questions about human nature, human feelings and humanitarianism and human dignity in the early 1980s.
As a "witness" of an era, "scar literature" undoubtedly recorded the blood and tears of that era. With the reflection of the times, Xu Wenxue has been further sublimated. The theme of "Cultural Revolution" to a great extent gave the writer a space to explore human nature and soul. We have reason to believe that the cost of an era cannot be one-dimensional. It costs us a lot in one respect and may compensate us in another.