Abstract: Modern realism has been in China for a hundred years. The traditional perspective of realism regards realism as a creative method, spirit, or principle, and research on realism mostly stays on questions such as "why realism presents itself" and "how realism occurs". At present, new perspectives such as the examination of the scientific lineage, reflection on new media reality, and exploration of realism from the perspective of literary philosophy are re evaluating the classic concepts and internal generative logic of realism around the question of "what is realism". In the context of the increasing mismatch between the practice of realism texts and theoretical criticism, this "inward turning" or "inward looking" perspective has an insight perspective that traditional theories do not have when interpreting new phenomena and texts that are currently occurring. On the one hand, it challenges the traditional discourse spectrum of realism, and on the other hand, it highlights the paradoxical direction inherent in the concept of realism in the dialectical thinking of "inward turning".