Urban Writing in Eileen Chang’s Novels

Abstract

Most of Eileen Chang’s works are set in the metropolis, describing the daily trifles of urban groups and showing the daily life, life fate and human tragedy of ordinary urban people. On the one hand, her works show the heavy traffic and blooming flowers of metropolises such as Shanghai and Hong Kong; on the other hand, she depicts the numbness, indifference and anxiety of urban people behind the prosperity, exposing the urban diseases brought by the fast-paced and high-pressure life. Eileen Chang incorporated the daily life of urban people into the field of literature, and left the memory of urban life of an era through the detailed depiction of daily life. She improves, enriches and strengthens the expressive force of the novel, and forms a unique aesthetic style based on daily narrative. By analyzing the urban culture in Eileen Chang’s works, this paper explores the urban people’s outlook on life, love and marriage and values shown in Eileen Chang’s works, as well as the era changes and social transformation between the old and new reflected in the works. The pain and confusion caused by this transformation still exist, which is of great reference significance.