Ideology, Power, Text : Self-Representation and the Peasant ‘Other’ in Modern Chinese Literature

The division between the scholar-gentry class and the “people” was an enduring theme of the traditional Chinese agrarian-bureaucratic state. Twentieth-century elites recast this as a division between intellectuals and peasants and made the confrontation between the writing/intellectual self and the peasant “other” a central concern of literature. The author argues that, in the process, they created the “peasantry,” the downtrodden rural masses represented as proper objects of political action and shifting ideological agendas. Throughout this transition, language or discourse has been not only a weapon of struggle but the center of controversy and contention. Because of this primacy of language, the author’s main approach is the close reading or, rather, re-reading of significant narrative fictions from four literary generations to demonstrate how historical, ideological, and cultural issues are absorbed, articulated, and debated within the text. Three chapters each focus on one representative author. The fiction of Lu Xun (1881-1936), which initiated the literary preoccupation with the victimized peasant, is also about the identity crisis of the intellectual. Zhao Shuli (1906-1970), upheld by the Communist Party as a model “peasant writer,” tragically exemplifies in his career the inherent contradictions of such an assigned role. In the post-Mao era, Gao Xiaosheng (1928—) uses the ironic play of language to present a more ambiguous peasant while deflating intellectual pretensions. The chapter on the last of the four “generations” examines several texts by Mo Yan (1956—), Han Shaogong (1952—), and Wang Anyi (1954—) as examples of “root-searching” fiction from the mid-1980’s. While reaching back into the past, this fiction is paradoxically also experimental in technique: the encounter with the peasant leads to questions about the self-construction of the intellectual and the nature of narrative representation itself. Throughout, the focus is on texts in which some sort of representation or stand-in of the writer/intellectual self is present—as character, as witness, as center of consciousness, or as first-person or obtrusive narrator. Each story catches the writer in a self-reflective mode, the confrontation with the peasant “other” providing a theater for acting out varying dramas of identity, power, ideology, political engagement, and self-representation. Cover Contents Introduction: A Literature "Out of the Ruins"? 1 From Tradition to Modernity: Intellectual and Peasant in Transition Intellectuals and the State: Coincidence and Tension Between the Political and Moral Order Writing and the Authority of Literary Tradition A Tradition of Literary Martyrdom The Peasant—Seen, but Heard? Modern Literature: Constructing the Peasant/Searching for the Self Class-ifying Intellectuals for a "Peasant Revolution" 2 Language and Textuality: Toward an Analytical Methodology May Fourth and the Primacy of Language Language: A Chinese Communist Obsession Language and Textuality—(Re)reading the Text Realism, Self, and Representation 3 Lu Xun and the Crisis of the Writing Self May Fourth Subjectivism—The State of the Individual Writer The Problematic Self in the Text A Paradigm of the Writing Self—A Reading of the Madman and His Diary Representing Ah Q as Peasant "Other”? "Discovering" the Peasant as "Peasant”? The Peasant Encountered—"My Old Home" and "The New-Year Sacrifice" The Move to the Left A Prophetic "Small Incident”—Moving Toward Yan’an 4 Zhao Shuli: The "Making" of a Model Peasant Writer The Writer as Peasant Peasant Versus Intellectual in Yan’an Cultural Policy The "Making" of a Peasant Writer Why Blackie Has to Get Married The Writer's Role—Telling a "True Story" The Narrator as Folk Artist—"The Rhymes of Li Youcai” Ideology, Realism, and the Peasant Character Compliance and Protest—The Fate of Zhao Shuli 5 Reassessing the Past in the "New Era": Gao Xiaosheng Another Zhao Shuli or Another Lu Xun? Reappraisal of Literature on the Countryside and the "New Realism" The Intellectual-Peasant Bond Li Shunda and Building the Mansion of Socialism The Peasant in a Changing World: The Chen Huansheng Series Intellectuals and Their Role Writing at What Cost? Liu Yu and His Book The Transition from Realism 6 The Post-Modern "Search for Roots" in Han Shaogong, Mo Yan, and Wang Anyi Searching for the Past and "Moving Toward the World" Interrogating Self, Language, and Text Han Shaogong as Exemplary "Search for Roots" Writer? The Crisis to the Self: Identity and Moral Responsibility The Intellectual Writing Self as Unworthy Descendant in Red Sorghum Writing About Bao Village: The Writer Inside and Outside the Text Epilogue; or, What Next? Who's a Peasant Now? Women and the Intellectual/Peasant "Other" Paradigm The Uncertain State of the Writer/Intellectual Chronological List of Major Texts Discussed Notes Works Cited Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N P Q R S T W X Y Z The division between the scholar-gentry class and the "people" was an enduring theme of the traditional Chinese agrarian-bureaucratic state. Twentieth-century elites recast this as a division between intellectuals and peasants and made the confrontation between the writing/intellectual self and the peasant "other" a central concern of literature. The author argues that, in the process, they created the "peasantry", the downtrodden rural masses represented as proper objects of political action and shifting ideological agendas.Throughout this transition, language or discourse has been not only a weapon of struggle but the center of controversy and contention. Because of this primacy of language, the author's main approach is the close reading or, rather, re-reading of significant narrative fictions from four literary generations to demonstrate how historical, ideological, and cultural issues are absorbed, articulated, and debated within the text.Three chapters each focus on one representative author. The fiction of Lu Xun (1881-1936), which initiated the literary preoccupation with the victimized peasant, is also about the identity crisis of the intellectual. Zhao Shuli (1906-1970), upheld by the Communist Party as a model "peasant writer", tragically exemplifies in his career the inherent contradictions of such an assigned role. In the post-Mao era, Gao Xiaosheng (1928-) uses the ironic play of language to present a more ambiguous peasant while deflating intellectual pretensions. The chapter on the last of the four "generations" examines several texts by Mo Yan (1956-), Hah Shaogong (1952-), and Wang Anyi (1954-) as examples of "root-searching" fiction from the mid-1980's. Whilereaching back into the past, this fiction is paradoxically also experimental in technique: the encounter with the peasant leads to questions about the self-construction of the intellectual and the nature of narrative representation itself.Throughout, the focus is on texts in which some sort of representation or stand-in of the writer/intellectual self is present -- as character, as witness, as center of consciousness, or as first-person or obtrusive narrator. Each story catches the writer in a self-reflective mode, the confrontation with the peasant "other" providing a theater for acting out varying dramas of identity, power, ideology, political engagement, and self-representation. "The division between the scholar-gentry class and the "people" was an enduring theme of the traditional Chinese agrarian-bureaucratic state. Twentieth-century elites recast this as a division between intellectuals and peasants and made the confrontation between the writing/intellectual self and the peasant "other" a central concern of literature. The author argues that, in the process, they created the "peasantry," the downtrodden rural masses represented as proper objects of political action and shifting ideological agendas."--BOOK JACKET. "Throughout this transition, language or discourse has been not only a weapon of struggle but the center of controversy and contention. Because of this primacy of language, the author's main approach is the close reading or, rather, re-reading of significant narrative fictions from four literary generations to demonstrate how historical, ideological, and cultural issues are absorbed, articulated, and debated within the text."--Jacket