On Ding Ling's Novel Creation and Its Artistic Features

As an important writer of modern women's literature, Ding Ling's most prominent thing is to pour her rough life experience into her infatuated literary creation, leaving us a lot of rich spiritual heritage. In her creation, we can not only touch the pulse of a revolutionary writer who grew up rapidly in the May 4th sunshine, but also find her tireless exploration and pursuit of literature. Her creative path is regarded as a typical example of the growth of modern female literature. Throughout Ding Ling's creation, there are obviously several stages:

First of all, from the late 1920s to before joining the Left League. During this period, Ding Ling mainly published three collections of short stories: In the Dark (1928), Suicide Diary (1928) and A Woman (1930). These works mark the rise of women in the new era and establish her important position in the modern literary world. The most representative works in the collection are Monk, Diary of Ms. Sha Fei and Miss Amao. The protagonists of these works are all women. On the one hand, they inherited the spiritual connotation created by the first generation of female writers such as Bing Xin, Lu Yin and Feng during the May 4th Movement-resistance and rebellion against feudal autocracy; On the other hand, it created a typical intellectual female image who was rebellious, depressed and chased by the petty bourgeoisie after the ebb tide of the May 4th Movement. They have a strong sentimental color of emptiness, depression and despair, and are deeply branded with the imprint of the times and society. Ms Sha Fei is the most prominent representative. Judging from the narrative mode of the novel, Ding Ling's works have the sentimental feelings of analyzing the inner world of the characters in Yu Dafu's autobiographical novels during the May 4th Movement. However, the bold and wholehearted portrayal of stubborn female characters and the delicate and frank disclosure of the complex feelings of the characters give people a refreshing feeling. This marks the end of the May 4th sentimental novel.

Second, from 1930 to 1936. This is the second important stage of Ding Ling's creation. The establishment of the Left League inspired a large number of revolutionary writers, and Ding Ling's creation has undergone tremendous changes. In line with the development of the times and the advocacy and practice of revolutionary literature, Ding Ling turned her creative theme to social revolution for the first time, and created novella Hu Wei (1930), short story Shanghai in the spring of 1930 (the first part and the second part) and other well-known "revolution+love" works. The former tells the story of Hu Wei, a revolutionary who returned from studying in the Soviet Union, falling in love with the passionate and romantic girl Angel Lee. However, the focus is on the conflict between love and revolutionary activities. Hu Wei, faced with an unsolvable contradiction, finally left reluctantly. Angel lee realized her situation and decided to abandon her personal feelings and join the society. The latter only changed the characters to Wang Wei and Mary. The contradiction between revolution and love ended in parting ways, and they went to find their own lives. Although these creative forms are formulaic, we can't deny Ding Ling's accurate description of transitional figures in a transitional era and the true revelation of the contradictory psychology of modern intellectuals in the process of changing from individualism to collectivism. This just reflects Ding Ling's exploration and active practice in the transformation of new literature from human literature and life literature to revolutionary literature and proletarian literature since the May 4th Movement. At that time, the Executive Committee of the Leftist League called on writers to "create new works", "take the masses as masters" and "join the ranks of workers, peasants and soldiers" (Beidou 1932.2( 1)). Ding Ling can quickly adjust her creative direction and try actively. Her collection of short stories, Water (193 1), Night Party (1933) and novel Mother (1933), are mostly based on the real life in the countryside in the early 1930s, which truly reproduces the psychological changes of farmers in the rapidly changing countryside. In "Water", the author takes the flood that occurred in the whole country in 193 1 year and affected 16 provinces as the background, and outlines the group images of farmers' awakening and resistance with thick lines. This work was praised by Feng Xuefeng as "this is a new novel that we should have". [2] Ding Ling's works reflect the basic characteristics of left-wing novel creation: the great reality of theme mining; Social criticism from the perspective of class; Realism of a broad life picture. In this practice, Ding Ling got rid of the description of intellectuals and began to describe rural life, which reflected her persistent pursuit of realistic creation.

Third, from 1936 to 1949. Here Ding Ling is in the creative period of Yan 'an. 1936, Dong Dingling went to Yan 'an, a revolutionary base in northern Shaanxi, and entered a brand-new creative world. At first, Ding Ling reflected the new content of life with literary styles such as communication, essays and impressions. Later, he wrote novels about the new era of the liberated areas, and created a collection of short stories, When I was in the next village (1944), A bullet without a gun chamber (1946) and a novel, The Sun shines on the Sanggan River (1948). These works mark the maturity of Ding Ling's realistic creation. Compared with her past works and other writers in the liberated areas, the most successful part of Ding Ling's novels is that she respects her own observation and thinking, and focuses on showing people's great spirit and spiritual tremor in a historical era of great change with delicate emotions and brushstrokes. She not only enthusiastically praised and described the new life, new fashions and new characters in the revolutionary base areas and liberated areas, but also bluntly exposed the dark side of life, thus making her works reach a new height of realism. When I was in the Village is the first work of Selected Short Stories in Liberated Areas edited by Zhou Yang. The protagonist Pearl Krabs, a rural girl, escaped from the cage of feudal arranged marriage, but failed to break free from the Japanese invaders who humiliated and plundered her, and was humiliated and ravaged. Even so, with unyielding soul, she shouted, "I have to find a way to live and have an interesting life." In the Japanese military camp, he endured humiliation and delivered information to our army many times. The biggest mental pain is that her experience and efforts are not understood by people after returning to the village. The strange "sympathy and pity" eyes made her unbearable, and she finally had to leave her hometown and rush to Yan' an. The value of the novel reveals the mental numbness caused by people's long-term poisoning by feudal thoughts in a specific environment through the perspective of the characters' souls. A strong woman who has been insulted and hurt, in the quagmire of disaster, has a complicated heart, and the writer reveals it layer by layer, guiding readers to think deeply about the heavy history. The writer's novel and unique spiritual perspective and delicate and euphemistic style reflect the active and bold spirit of artistic pursuit. "In the Hospital" was completed in 1940. It has not been fairly evaluated in the history of literature for a long time, and the writer has been criticized a lot. Lu Ping, the heroine who graduated from Shanghai Obstetrics School, came to Yan 'an to become a * * * party member, and obeyed the needs of the organization to become an obstetrician in a new hospital. Ding Ling pays attention to what Lu Ping sees, hears and feels in the new environment, and pays more attention to the truth of her spiritual experience. Therefore, she tried to expose some shortcomings in the revolutionary ranks, the bureaucratic style of leaders in hospitals, the conservative, selfish and peaceful small-scale production consciousness of general medical staff, and the ignorance and numbness among patients. Through the comparative description of Lu Ping, who represents modern science and democratic thought, and the contradictions and conflicts between these phenomena, it shows the arduousness of the spiritual growth of the two-way interaction between revolutionary cadres and intellectuals. In such an environment, Ding Ling was able to ask such profound questions precisely because the realistic fighting tradition gave her courage and courage. Ding Ling paid a heavy price for this, and also explained the realism of this novel from the opposite side. From her masterpiece The Sun Shines on the Sanggan River, we can further see the deepening and development of the writer's overall creation.

Looking at the three stages of Ding Ling's creative development, we can say that she is a female writer with unique contributions in the history of modern literature. There are two main points in her novel creation: First, Ding Ling always adheres to the realistic fighting spirit. Although her creative stages are different, her creative pursuit of bravely facing real life, keenly grasping the pulse of the times, strong sense of the times and ideological penetration in her works is the same. From quickly adjusting his own creation to meet the needs of revolutionary struggle, to sincerely exposing all kinds of realistic disadvantages in feudal thought and liberated area creation, all these clearly reflect the power of realistic creation under the writer's profound vision. Ding Ling's revolutionary attitude and realistic creation mark the breakthrough of female literature in the narrow scope of the individual. She is an explorer and pioneer of modern female literature. The second is the innovation of Ding Ling's novel creation art and the formation of her unique artistic style. Ding Ling is good at writing the characters' inner world, seeing through the characters' multiple complexities, paying attention to expressing their feelings and stressing delicate brushwork, which shows her artistic uniqueness among female writers. The images of Sha Fei, Zhen Zhen and Lu Ping, in the figure gallery of modern novels, rarely Ding Ling deeply integrated her life experience, especially her feelings about women's life with them. Especially from the soul's oscillation and soul's struggle, it deeply describes the feeling of historical change and highlights the authenticity of realistic creation. Ding Ling's creation, from the rigor of the initial revolutionary literature to the later realistic depth, and the formation of calm artistic style, is closely related to her sudden entry into the dual inner depths of subject (writer) and object (character).

Finally, through a brief analysis of Ding Ling's early masterpiece "Diary of Ms. Sha Fei", we can further affirm the writer's aesthetic personality and artistic exploration. This is a diary novel. After the publication of the second issue of the Novel Monthly 1928, the protagonist Sha Fei, a "young woman who has been branded with the times since the May 4th Movement" and "depressed by the trauma of the times" [3], caused great shock in the literary world at that time, and the writer achieved greater success. This is the concentrated expression of the life truth of intellectual women's spiritual pursuit and trembling in Sha Fei after the ebb tide of the May 4th Movement. The author has successfully created an image of a rebellious, depressed and hesitant intellectual woman. The failed love choice between Sha Fei and the cowardly Di Wei and the duplicity of Ling Jishi fully shows her contradictory character. Sha Fei escaped from the feudal family and advocated real personality liberation, but he always pursued love and lost it, and held the fantasy of "eating, drinking and having fun" without happiness. She despises social obstacles and deception and stubbornly resists with her lonely soul. Unwilling to disillusion, inner turmoil, dissatisfaction with secular indulgence and rebellion are full of pathological conditions, while sensitivity, paranoia, eccentricity and arrogance constitute the basic characteristics of his character. Ding Ling vividly reflects the silhouette of the times with this image, that is, with the progress of history, the personality liberation of the May 4th Movement left only bitter sadness and fatigue. The writer highly concentrated the mental outlook of a depressed young man in the transition period, and went deep into the complex and rich emotional world of the characters with the delicate and frank psychological description unique to women. Ding Ling's Diary of Ms. Sha Fei opened a new chapter in Yu Dafu's sentimental and lyrical novels since the May 4th Movement, and established her overall creative style and artistic personality.