A Theoretical Study of Zhang Ailing's Short Story Collection Chuanqi Lin
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A Theoretical Study of Zhang Ailing’s Short Story Collection Chuanqi Lin Wei-Hsin Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London June 2007 1 ProQuest Number: 10672995 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10672995 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 A Theoretical Study of Zhang Ailing’s Short Story Collection Chuanqi Abstract This thesis applies three literary theories as approaches to the study ofChuanqi , the short story collection of the modem Chinese writer Zhang Ailing. A feminist reading of Chuanqi demonstrates that the social roles of women are actually the projections of men’s desires. Women, deprived of the right to define themselves, can only struggle to live up to men’s expectations which, however, twist their mentality. A Lacanian study of Chuanqi points out how characters keep transforming their desires into fantasies which, once condensed into signifiers, will he imposed upon other people, the embodiments of the signifieds. However, the characters’ desires are never satisfied since people always fail to act in accordance with the signifiers tagged to them. The symbolic disjunction brings to light the irrevocable process where desires turn into disillusions. Bakhtin’s theory illustrates that the discourses of characters are the manifestations of their ideologies, whereas the encounters between different ideologies are doomed to end in conflicts. In Chuanqi, the collisions between characters due to their incompatible views of life highlight the arguments of Bakhtin. The inharmonious relationships between characters also account for the main point of Zhang’s essay, “The Religion of the Chinese,” in which she contends that the secularization of Chinese people results from their emphasis on the maneuvering of relationships. Zhang’s overview of Chinese religion indicates her obsession with China. Zhang is engaged in a decadent mentality that prompts her to indulge in the decay of Chinese civilization. Decadence brings forth the sense of desolation which 3 haunts all the stories in Chuanqi as we see how characters, unable to detach themselves from civilization, are besieged with desolation because their desires are left unfulfilled within the restrictions of a civilized society. 4 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Table of Contents 5 Introduction 7 Zhang Ailing and Chuanqi A review of early scholarship Civilization and desolation Method of study and organization What I want to achieve Chapter I. A Feminist Reading ofChuanqi 46 1. The homosexual society and the performance of gender 2. Three roles of women 3. Fetishism, marriage and prostitution 4. Mother/daughter relations: masochist/sadist mothers and the negative Oedipus complex 5. The child woman: the virgins and the victims of their virginity 6. Men’s love as women’s religion 7. Zhang Ailing and Luce Irigaray—a comparative study Chapter II. A Lacanian Reading of Three Stories inChuanqi —“The 125 Jasmine Tea”, “In The Years of Youth” and “Red Rose and White Rose” 1. A symbolic universe, the work of metaphor and the disjunction between the signifier and the signified 2. The symbolic world in Zhang Ailing’s life 3. The symbolic world in “The Jasmine Tea” 4. The symbolic world in “In The Years of Youth” 5. The symbolic world in “Red Rose and White Rose” 6. The symbolic order and its disillusion Chapter III. A Bakhtinian Reading of Four Stories inChuanqi —“Great 194 Felicity”, “Steamed Osmanthus Flower Ah Xiao’s Unhappy Autumn”, “Love in a Fallen City” and “Traces of Love” 1. Discourse as ideology and the dialogized heteroglossia 2. Ideologies and heteroglossia in “Great Felicity” 3. Ideologies and heteroglossia in “Steamed Osmanthus Flower Ah Xiao’s Unhappy Autumn” 5 4. Ideologies and heteroglossia in “Love in a Fallen City” 5. Ideologies and heteroglossia in “Traces of Love” 6. Chinese religion in Zhang Ailing’s eyes Chapter IV. “Days and Nights of China” and Zhang Ailing’s Obsession 286 with China 1. Modern Chinese writers’ obsession with China 2. Zhang Ailing’s obsession with China in “Days and Nights of China” 3. Yishi xiexu and wuhua cangliang 4. The secularity in Zhang’s works 5. Detailed writings and the sense of desolation 6. Anachronism 7. Decadence 8. The dilemma in the “golden mean” andcenci de duizhao 9. The contradiction in Zhang’s obsession with China Conclusion 323 What has been accomplished up to now? Future paths? Bibliography 342 6 Introduction Zhang Ailing and Chuanqi This thesis is an analytical reading of Chuanqi, the short story collection of the modem Chinese writer, Zhang Ailing. I applied three western literary theories to the study of the stories in order to make a connection between the Chinese and the western literary scenes and to see how oriental and occidental interactions can help us re-evaluate these short stories that have already been explored by numerous essays and academic papers. Zhang Ailing was bom in Shanghai in 1920. She became a professional writer in Japanese occupied Shanghai by contributing essays and movie reviews to the English journal, Twentieth Century. But she did not attract considerable publicity until two of her Chinese short stories, “Chenxiang Xie—Diyi Luxiang” —Jfl — (Aloe Ashes—The First Burning) and “Chengxiang Xie—Dier Luxiang” fji Hfjp}— (Aloe Ashes—The Second Burning) appeared in the magazine, Ziluolan (Violet) in 1943. The following three years witnessed the marvelous productivity of this writer. Blessed with great inspiration, Zhang produced many acclaimed short stories and essays, the majority of which were published in journals such as Zazhi fSife (The Magazine), Wanxiang H ij^The Miscellaneous) and Tiandi (Heaven and Earth), while later on she also started to serialize her novels in magazines and newspapers. Zhang left China for the United States a few years after the Communist Party came to power, and for the rest of her life, she led a reclusive life there. Her initial attempt to rise to fame in the American literary arena with her anti-communist novels, The Rice Sprout Song and Naked Earth, was greeted by a series of failures. She then devoted the latter part of her life to the English translation of the late-Qing novel, 7 Haishanghua Liezhuan 'M (Sing-song Girls o f Shanghai) as well as the textual research of the Chinese classic,Honglou Meng (Dream o f the Red Chamber), monographs on which were finally published as a book entitled Honglou Mengyan (The Nightmare about Dream o f the Red Chamber). In 1995, Zhang was found dead in a shabby room in Los Angeles; shortly thereafter, her death became the headlines of most Chinese newspapers and ushered in an era that has featured a feverish study of Zhang Ailing and her works. Chuanqi was first published in 1944 by Zazhi publishing house. It contained ten stories Zhang had written from 1943 to 1944: “Aloe Ashes—The First Burning”, “Aloe Ashes—The Second Burning”, “Moli Xiangpain”^ ^ fj:ff ^ (The Jasmine Tea), “Xin Jing” /[>!M (The Heart Sutra), “Qingcheng Zhilian”ftffj^^^(L ove in a Fallen City), “Jinsuo Ji” (The Golden Cangue), “Fengsuo” Xj’IJt (Shutdown), “Liuli Wa”^ ^ K (The Glazed Tiles), “Nianqing de Shihou” (In the Years of Youth), and “Huadiao”®jU (A Wilted Flower). In 1947, ShanheTushu Company published an enlarged edition of Chuanqi that incorporated the following works: “Deng” H (Waiting), “Guihuazheng Ah Xiao Beiqiu”f=tri?(Steamed Osmanthus Flower Ah Xiao’s Unhappy Autumn), “Hongmeigui yu Baimeigui” (Red Rose and White Rose), “Hong Luan Xi” M fSIS (Great Felicity) and “Zhongguo de Riye’^ H lB B f'S (Days and Nights of China). In 1994, Crown Publishing Corporation in Taiwan published the complete edition of Zhang Ailing’s works in 15 volumes, two of which are the collections of all the works compiled in the enlarged edition of Chuanqi, respectively entitled Diyi Luxiang—Zhang Ailing Duanpian Xiaoshuoji Zhi JgYi— (The First Burning— The Collection o f Zhang Ailing’s Short Stories I),and Qingcheng Zhilian—Zhang Ailing Duanpian Xiaoshuoji Zhi Er M ill A iXl— (Love in a Fallen City—The Collection o f Zhang Ailing’s Short Stories II). Crown Publishing Corporation, authorized by Zhang to publish the corpus of her works, was granted the final versions of these short stories revised and scrutinized by the writer herself. In this thesis, I utilized the edition ofChuanqi published by Crown Publishing Corporation as it provides the finished texts of the stories which account for Zhang’s conclusive views on her early works. Chuanqi stands for the climax of Zhang’s literary career. It is the constellation of her works usually considered to be the full display of her talent. Her short stories are always appreciated for her keen attentiveness to the details of life which make her language a fine tapestry teeming with lengthy narratives and delicate portrayals of the smells and tastes of food, of fabrics, cosmetics, jewels, and of the adornment of houses furnished with exquisite decorations. A world crowded with material pleasures is, however, integrated with her keen observation and unrelenting revelation of the corruption of people trapped in a decadent life. The uncanny combination of material floridity and spiritual bleakness in Chuanqi not only registers the uniqueness of Zhang Ailing as a writer but has also invited many critics and scholars to quarry from her works the perceptions that differentiates Zhang from her contemporaneous writers.