Revolution Plus Love

Revolution Plus Love Revolution Plus Love Literary History, Women’s Bodies, and Thematic Repetition in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction Liu Jianmei University of Hawai‘i Press HONOLULU © 2003 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 08 07 06 05 04 03 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Liu, Jianmei. Revolution plus love : literary history, women’s bodies, and thematic repetition in twentieth-century Chinese ¤ction / Liu Jianmei. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2586-1 (alk. paper) 1. Chinese fiction—20th century—History and criticism. I. Title. PL2442 .L55 2003 895.1'3509—dc21 2003010415 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by inari Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group To my dear father, Liu Zaifu Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 The Unusual Literary Scene 33 2 In the Eyes of the Leftists 72 3 Feminizing Politics 104 4 Shanghai Variations 135 5 Love Cannot Be Forgotten 162 6 Farewell or Remember Revolution? 193 Conclusion 210 Notes 217 Glossary 239 Bibliography 245 Index 265 vii Acknowledgments I am most grateful to David Der-wei Wang, who encouraged me to delve into the dialogue between revolution and love, who helped whenever needed, and whose vast knowledge and ¤ne intuition inspire me. As my former adviser and mentor at Columbia University, he never fails to render his advice, support, and care, and his strength and generosity have kept me going at the most dif¤cult of periods. His dedication to the ¤eld has set a great example for me to follow. I also owe an academic and personal debt to Leo Ou-fan Lee, who has frequently listened to my ideas and offered constructive criticism and constant support. He urges me not to be constricted by theoretical correctness or by the current conventions of writing a scholarly book, especially when I am dealing with a subject that does not exactly ¤t the current state of theoretical concerns. My special thanks go to Wang Ban, who always generously shares his thoughts on revolutionary literature with me and whose insightful remarks and suggestions have prompted me to modify this work. During the past years I have also bene¤ted from the astute suggestions of C. T. Hsia, whose brother T. A. Hsia’s work The Gate of Darkness has inspired me and stimulated my study. I must also express my gratitude to Howard Goldblatt, who launched me into Chinese literary studies in the United States. My heartfelt thanks go out to Perry Link, Lydia Liu, Li Tuo, William Tay, Michelle Yeh, Joseph Lau, Kang-I Sun Zhang, Shang Wei, Lu Xiaobo, Tomi Suzuki, Marsha Wagner, Paul Rouzer, Victoria Cass, Tang Xiaobing, Michael Tsin, Kirk Denton, Chen Xiaomei, and Leo T. H. Chan for supporting my work in general, for reading portions of this book, and for providing valuable suggestions. To my friend Ann Huss I am indebted in many ways. Her gener- ous friendship and unsel¤sh criticism helped sustain me throughout the process of ¤nishing the manuscript. Many friends—among them Kong Haili, Shen Shuang, Shu Yunzhong, Song Weijie, Wang Xiaojue, Earl Tai, Carlos ix x Acknowledgments Rojas, Charles Laughlin, Tian Xiaofei, Kang Xiaofei, Letty Chen, Robin Vis- ser, Amy Dooling, Leslie Kriesel, and Alex Des Forges—read parts or all of the manuscript and gave me thoughtful and extensive comments, which I greatly appreciate. The Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Ex- change, the General Research Board at the University of Maryland, and the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland generously sponsored the project at different stages. I am very grateful to my colleagues at the University of Maryland—Robert Ramsey, Cynthia Martin, Gretchen Jones, Elizabeth Papazian, Eleanor Kerkham, Chin Tsung, Lindsay Yotsu- kura, David Branner, Kira Gor, Maria Lekic, Li Jungjung, and Qi Yanrong— for their nurturing spirit and for continued support. I also want to thank my graduate students Zhu Aijun, Yun Limei, and Cao Yan for their research assis- tance. Special thanks go to Cheng Ma, Shen Zhijia, Sheau Wei Y. Chen, Zhang Zhongda, Alex Brown, and Zhang Rongxiang for helping me collect valuable materials. I must also express my appreciation to the anonymous reviewers of the original manuscript; their insightful criticism has helped me avoid the pitfall of theoretical jargon. I am especially indebted to my editor, Pamela Kelley, who recognized my work in the ¤rst place and guided me with so much kind- ness, insight, and patience through the process of publication. Her support and faith in the subject matter of the book gave me enormous strength. I also want to thank managing editor Cheri Dunn and copy editor Joanne Sand- strom for their ef¤ciency and professionalism. No words will suf¤ce for my deep gratitude to my father, Liu Zaifu, who ushered me into the literary ¤eld, in which he has been father, teacher, and friend. I feel so fortunate to have such a father, devoting all his life to literature, never yielding to the mundane world of power, prejudice, cynicism, and snob- bishness. His belief in my talent and our constant dialogues on Chinese literature have made this book possible. I am also very grateful to my mother, Chen Feiya; my sister, Liu Lian; and my grandmother, Ye Jinfang, for their love, support, and encouragement. Finally, my special gratitude and appreciation are reserved for my dear husband, Kenneth G. Huang, whose understanding, love, and care encompass me, and for my son, Alan Huang, whose sweet and innocent smiles always bring sunshine to my writing. An earlier version of chapter 2 was published in the Journal of Modern Chi- nese Literature in Chinese 5.2 (January 2002): 55–80. Portions of chapter 4 ap- peared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Spring 2002, 51–92. Revolution Plus Love Introduction “Revolution plus love” (geming jia lian’ai) as a theme or formula was ¤rst popu- larized in the late 1920s. It was a speci¤cally literary response to political events: the collaboration and breakup (1923–1927) of the Nationalist Party (Guomin- dang [GMD]) and the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and the subsequent urban and rural insurrections, as well as the Soviet revolution’s international in¶uence, which played a crucial role in the emergence of this literary practice. Broadly speaking, this theme referred to a special set of issues related to the ris- ing expectations of “revolution” in the cultural aftermath of the May Fourth movement (1919), such as the position of the self within a society in turmoil, the increasing clashes between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the conjunction of political and sexual identities. This extremely popular but understudied theme, which not only was favored by leftist writers during the early period of revolutionary literature but also continued to in¶uence mainstream literature up to the 1970s, has been used to convey diverse meanings that allow us to reex- amine the contingency and contestedness of modern Chinese literary history. Although this theme was overwhelmingly framed by political consciousness, the interactions between revolution and love in the works it produced remain highly disputed. There are still many neglected and disconcerting questions. What has it meant, for example, to be an individual and express that politically, to associate sexual drive with politics, in the turbulent history of twentieth- century China? Does the connection between revolution and love echo only the of¤cial version of modern Chinese history, or is it an essential component of all narratives of this history? What is the role of gender in the expression and rep- resentation of politics, with which it has been intimately intertwined? How do we look at eroticized representations of bodies, which have a multitude of political and cultural meanings? The polemical relationships between literature and politics, gender and power, modernity and tradition are revealed in a 1 2 Introduction network of changing and often con¶icting representations of revolution and love. The complex interaction and mutual in¶uence between these elements in different historical moments not only reveal the contradictions and paradoxes surrounding the Chinese project of modernity but also provide some insight into the history of modern Chinese literature, beyond linear and evolutionary historicity and established genres. In recent years, literary studies have examined revolution and love as dis- crete and autonomous constructions; few have paid critical attention to the relationship between them. Among these, critics such as Meng Yue argue that revolutionary discourse delimited and repressed the private realm of desire, love, sexuality, self, and all emotions during the Mao years.1 Declaring that such an understanding imposes a strict dichotomy between political repression and bodily energy, Wang Ban emphasizes sexually charged Communist culture, in which love and pleasure have gone beyond the heterosexual relationship: “private desire can take public, political, and apparently nonsexual guises.”2 For the most part, however, neither of these interpretations—that the politics of revolution typically overwhelms and represses love, woman, and sexuality; that libidinal energy is the deep psychic root for both—takes into ac- count that no single model can adequately explain the often overlapping and contradictory historical expressions of the relationship between revolution and love. The revolutionary discourse during the Mao years certainly in¶uenced and shaped the construction of gender norms and sexual identity, but these codes of bodily and sexual behavior could, in turn, transform the sublime form of revolution. In fact, as we have stepped into a new millennium and look back to exam- ine the interactions between revolution and love in the twentieth century, we must be aware that the changes in their relationships and meanings refer to a performative and dynamic concept of literary history.

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