Intellectuals in Chinese Novels at the Dawn of the 21st Century

The dawn of the 21st century saw images of intellectuals in novels change in a drastic way. Intellectuals, and those in the humanities in particular, are no longer portrayed as privileged Enlightenment thinkers or sages with Confucian ideas of salvation. In the novels that take intellectuals as their subject matters, such characters often end up involved in betrayal, self-exile, or spiritual/mortal death. This is not a historical process, nor an inevitable course for intellectuals to be sure, but it remains a legitimate question to ask why these fictional intellectuals are becoming, more often than not, new tragic heroes. Why are they becoming misfits in their society and ending up in exile, abandonment, and even death? The present paper examines different images of intellectuals and the makings of their destinies.