Modernism in Practice: Shi Zhecun's Psychoanalytic Fiction Writing Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Zhu, Yingyue Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 26/09/2021 14:07:54 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/642043 MODERNISM IN PRACTICE: SHI ZHECUN’S PSYCHOANALYTIC FICTION WRITING by Yingyue Zhu ____________________________ Copyright © Yingyue Zhu 2020 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2020 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Master’s Committee, we certify that we have read the thesis prepared by Yingyue Zhu, titled MODERNISM IN PRACTICE: SHI ZHECUN’S PSYCHOANALYTIC FICTION WRITING and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Master’s Degree. Jun 29, 2020 _________________________________________________________________ Date: ____________ Dian Li Fabio Lanza Jul 2, 2020 _________________________________________________________________ Date: ____________ Fabio Lanza Jul 2, 2020 _________________________________________________________________ Date: ____________ Scott Gregory Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the thesis to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this thesis prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the Master’s requirement. Jun 29, 2020 _________________________________________________________________ Date: ____________ Dian Li Master’s Thesis Committee Chair East Asian Studies Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………5 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 6 Chapter One: Reforms and the New Literature………………………………………………… 16 Chapter Two: Shi Zhecun’s Literary Career in the Twenties and Thirties…...………………… 35 Chapter Three: Shi Zhecun’s Psychoanalytic Fiction Writing ………………………………….47 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….66 Glossary………………………………………………………………………………………….74 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...87 4 List of Tables Table 1. She Zhecun’s Short Stories by Year……………………………..…………………......35 Table 2. Shi Zhecun’s Psychoanalytic Stories by Year………………………………….............41 Table 3. Water Foam Bookstore’s Marxist Literary Theory Series……………………………...42 5 Abstract Shi Zhecun (1905-2003) was among few Chinese writers in the New Literature who conscientiously illustrated the Freudian notions, such as the Eros and the Thanatos, the pleasure and the reality principles, and the sadism, in several of psychoanalytic stories written between 1928 and 1933. Adhering to the late Qing reformist and the May Fourth intellectual tradition to reconstruct a new National Character by a Westernized new fiction for the nation’s regeneration, the writer treated the profession seriously as to enlighten the people with progressive Western knowledge, especially the Freudian psychoanalytic propositions of the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires, via modernist devices such as the stream of consciousness, dual narrative, and the use of contrasting colors. Through an investigation of the literary trends since the late Qing to the early thirties, the writer’s literary career, and his psychoanalytic historical and urban stories, I suggest that despite certain shortcomings, as well as being largely unappreciated and misunderstood by the literary circle around him, the writer’s modernist experiments practically introduced several Freudian concepts to Chinese readers in the period when the New Literature was dominated by the ideologically charged Realism and Romanticism schools. 6 Introduction Short story writer, essayist, poet, literary translator, and scholar of classical Chinese poetry and stele inscriptions, Shi Zhecun was born in Hangzhou in the eastern and coastal Zhejiang province in China’s Jiangnan region in 1905, the only child of Yu Tiaomei and Shi Yizheng, who, as a government-sponsored student in Renhe county, would have dreamed a conventional career through the civil service examinations system if it had not been abolished for good as part of the late Qing reform movement.1 Now seeking alternative opportunities around, Shi Yizheng at first found a librarian position in a public normal school at another notable city of the region in the neighboring Jiangsu province, Suzhou, in 1907. As the institution was forced to close after the Revolution of 1911 (Xinhai geming), he brought the family moving to Songjiang, a county town near Shanghai, in 1913, working as a stocking factory manager, where the child Shi Zhecun had completed Westernized primary and secondary public schools.2 After graduation from high school in 1921, Shi Zhecun went to Hangzhou to attend the Protestant Hangchow University (Zhijiang daxue) and met his longtime friends Dai Wangshu and Du Heng. As they created their own student literary association the Orchid Society (Lan she), Shi Zhucun began to mail his short stories to Shanghai’s popular literary magazines such as The Saturday (Libai liu), The Semi-Monthly (Banyue), and The Week (Xingqi) for publication. However, before long the youth was discharged from the Christian institution for engaging in anti-religious activities. In fall 1922, Shi Zhecun and Dai Wangshu went to Shanghai to study Chinese literature at Shanghai University (Shanghai daxue), being a student in Mao Dun’s 1 The examinations system that had governed China’s sociopolitical scene more than a millennium was abandoned by the Qing court in 1905. 2 Poems 1, 2, & 12 in Fusheng za yong in Sha shang de jiaoji. Lu Xun made acrimonious comment on Shi Yizheng’s taking on the position, which was totally irrelevant to his classical training. 7 literature class.3 He self-published his first short story collection The Riverbank (Jianggan ji) that includes twenty-three stories in 1923. With Dai Wangshu and Du Heng, they self-published the literary journal Yingluo in 1925, and the three joined the Communist Youth League (Zhongguo gongchanzhuyi qingnian tuan) and the Nationalist Party (Zhongguo guomindang) in the same year.4 Nonetheless, frightened by atrocities in the April 12 Purge of 1927 (Si yi er shibian), they fled Shanghai.5 In summer 1927, Dai Wangshu traveled to Beijing and via an alumna of Shanghai University, Ding Ling, met writers and poets of the New Literature (Xin wenxue) such as Yao Pengzi, Feng Zhi, Wei Jinzhi, Shen Congwen, Feng Xuefeng, and Hu Yepin, and he later introduced them to Shi Zhucun, who began to teach Chinese linguistics and literature at a newly founded high school in Songjiang.6 1928 was a prolific year for the writer’s fiction writing. His story “Juanzi” (Juanzi) was published on the January issue of the Commercial Press’s (Shangwu yinshu guan) The Fiction Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao), signifying him as an emerging writer of the New Literature;7 he completed the proletarian tale “Chase” (Zhui), the realistic story “Wife’s Birthday” (Qi zhi shengchen); and his most celebrated psychoanalytic masterpiece “An Evening of Spring Rain” (Mieyu zhi xi).8 Besides, he worked as the weekend editor for the literary magazine The 3 Ying, “Shi Zhecun nianbiao” in Modern Chinese Writers’ Anthologies: Shi Zhecun, pp. 311-312. 4 Shi Zhecun, “Zhendan ernian” in Sha shang de jiaoji, pp. 5-10. 5 Shi Zhecun, “Zuihou yige lao pengyou – Feng Xuefeng” in Sha shang de jiaoji, pp. 122-123. 6 Ibid. 7 Ying, “Shi Zhecun nianbiao” in Modern Chinese Writers’ Anthologies: Shi Zhecun, p. 313. 8 Shi Zhecun, “‘Shangyuan deng’ gaibian zaiban zixu” in Shinian chuangzuo ji, p. 791. 8 Trackless Train (Wugui lieche) at Liu Na’ou’s newly-founded Frontline Bookstore (Diyixian shudian).9 Shi Zhecun married Chen Huihua in October 1929. Many of his friends in the literary circle, including Feng Xuefeng, Yao Pengzi, Shen Congwen, Ding Ling, Hu Yepin, Liu Na’ou, and Dai Wangshu, especially traveled from Shanghai to Songjiang to attend their wedding ceremony.10 Onward to the January 28 Incident (Yi er ba shibian) of 1932, Shi Zhecun worked as an editor for the Water Foam Bookstore’s (Shuimo shudian) magazine The New Literary Art (Xin wenyi), emended the Ming novelist Dong Ruoyu’s A Supplement to the Journey to the West (Xiyou bu), translated Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and several of Arthur Schnitzler’s psychoanalytic novels, and wrote stories of multiple styles from psychoanalytic tales “Kumarajiva” (Jiumo’luoshi), “The General’s Head” (Jiangjun di tou), “Shi Xiu” (Shi Xiu), “At the Paris Theatre” (Zai Bali da xiyuan), and “Devil’s Way” (Mo dao), proletarian stories “Flowers” (Hua) and “Ah Xiu” (Ah Xiu), to conventional urban housewife theme such as “The Shield Soup” (Chun geng).11 After the Sino-Japanese military conflict, from March 1932 to the beginning of 1935, he was appointed by Shanghai’s Xiandai Book Company (Xiandai shuju) to create and edit the literary journal Les Contemporains (Xiandai zazhi) to introduce the Western, Soviet, and Japanese literature and literary trends and publish Chinese writers’ literary thoughts and works.12 Meanwhile, he published three short story collections – The General’s Head (Jiangjun di tou) that comprises four