Cultural Restoration versus Cultural Revolution

Abstract

This article provides a reading of Hao Ran’s The Golden Road, the most celebrated Cultural Revolution fiction. From a traditional cultural perspective, the study focuses on characterization in the novel, and explores its connection with Chinese ethical and literary tradition. It shows that the unique prominence of Hao Ran and The Golden Road during the Cultural Revolution can be attributed to the writer’s craftsmanship in sculpting the novel’s dually ideological and cultural characterization. It thus concludes that the emphasis on not only ideological but also cultural representation to some extent indicates the then promoted Cultural Revolution literary aesthetic values. As regards Cultural Revolution writers’ individual style, Hao Ran’s craftsmanship vis-a-vis the dually ideological and cultural characterization was not developed during the Cultural Revolution but had already been honed in his pre-Cultural Revolution writings, thus indicating the connection between Cultural Revolution and pre-Cultural Revolution literatures.