An Analysis of the Marriage Crisis of Modern Chinese Intellectuals in Regret for the Past

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201215.418How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Family culture, Regret for the Past, May Fourth Movement, individualism, marriage and family

Abstract

This paper attempted a close study of the marriage tragedy in Lu Xun’s famous short story Regret for the Past with a focus on the contradictory relationship between traditional “family culture” and individualism of Chinese society in the 1920s. According to Lu Xun’s intention, the fictional tragedy can be extended to the common marriage and spiritual crisis among Chinese intellectuals in that period of social transition. In this case, the paper would explore the three layers of contradiction between the two opposite values, including the oppression of individuals by the family-centred mores of the society, the coexists of traditional family value and liberated individualism in people’s heart, and the division of emphasis on “family” and “individual” between the two parties in marriage. The research methods used in this paper include literature research and interdisciplinary research. This study aims to help the understanding of factors behind the marriage crisis from a historical and psycho-cultural perspective, reflect the cultural psychology that still affects modern Chinese people and their marriage, as well as provide a new perspective of modern China after the May Fourth Movement.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Longrun Wang
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/17
TI  - An Analysis of the Marriage Crisis of Modern Chinese Intellectuals in Regret for the Past
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 184
EP  - 188
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.418
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.418
ID  - Wang2020
ER  -