Week Two: Modern Chinese Literature

1
Week Two Modern Chinese Literature

• Fylde Building, Room 412
• Wednesday, 1-150 pm
• Instructor Gang Sui

2
The New-Year SacrificeLu Xun

• Questions from Xianglins Wife
• Do dead people turn into ghosts or not?
• That means there must be a hell too?
• Then will all the members of a family meet
  again after death?
• Tentative answers to her questions
• Quite possibly, Id say.
• Hell? Logically speaking, there should be
  too but not necessarily. Who cares anyway?
• In that case actually, Im not sure. In
  fact, Im not sure whether there are ghosts or
  not either.
• For the purposes of comparison and/or contrast,
  discuss the Western (?) concepts of life,
  death, ghost, soul, and afterlife as
  manifested in Shakespeares Sonnet 146 and
  Whitmans Chant 6 in Leaves of Grass.

3
Characterization

• dramatic characterization
• expository characterization
• Three-dimensional characterization
• one-dimensional characterization
• Xianglins Wife a flat character or a round
  character?
• Why (What are some of the examples of textual
  evidence)?
• What words (nouns, adjectives, etc.) can be used
  to describe Xianglins Wife as the protagonist of
  the story?

4

• Narration
• narrative point of view
• peripheral, limited vs. omniscient
• reliable or not?
• Conflict(s) the Meat of the Plot
• -- conflict between the protagonist and the other
  characters
• -- conflict between the protagonist and the
  society
• -- conflict between the protagonist and herself
• -- conflict between the protagonist and her fate

5
Tone(pity, noble indignation?)sympatheticemp
atheticironical/satiricalcritical

• Whose Tragedy?
• a personal tragedy
• a social tragedy
• a cultural tragedy
• a human tragedy

6

• New Culture Movement
• (the mid 1910s and 1920s)
• -- vernacular language widely used in literary
  creation
• -- call for democracy, science, individual
  freedom, and womens liberation
• -- bitter criticism against social ills and
  individual weaknesses as painfully observed in
  real-life experiences
• -- search for inspiration/guidance beyond China
  for the sake of Chinas betterment
• -- awareness of the inadequacy of traditional
  values alone to cope with new crises in the
  modern world
• -- awareness of the need for social change and
  cultural renewal