From Lu Town and Wei Zhuang of Inferiority to Wali Town of Misery -- on the Acceptance Theory of Xun Lu’s Rural Novels by the Ancient Ship from the Perspective of Time and Space

Abstract

Villages and towns are unique cultural spaces in Chinese society, carrying specific cultural and power structure. Wei Zhang's description of the countryside accepted the rural factors in Xun Lu's novels and put forward new changes under the background of economic reform and urbanization in the new era. This paper firstly presents the folklore and ancient metaphors in Lu Town - Wei Zhuang and Wali Town from the spatial perspective and discusses the characters and their traits nurtured in the towns. In the second part, the tensions between the roles of the squire and the underclass, the basic power and the clan power, and the male power and the female power are analyzed in the context of the power structure of the countryside. There are also comparisons between the images and fates of characters portrayed by Lu and by Zhang. The third section focuses on the individuals’ contradictory mentality in the process of urbanization. Through The Ancient Ship, Zhang criticizes the remaining brutality of the countryside and points out its future through suffering and confusion. By comparing the writings on the countryside of Lu and Zhang from a spatial and temporal context, we can learn about social changes in different times and the writers’ thoughts on the humanity in different political settings.