OLD AGE AND SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY: INTELLECTUAL REFLECTIONS AND LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS ACROSS CULTURES by Tao Feng APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________________________ Ming Dong Gu, Chair ___________________________________________ Rene Prieto ___________________________________________ Adrienne L. McLean ___________________________________________ David F. Channell Copyright 2018 Tao Feng All Rights Reserved OLD AGE AND SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY: INTELLECTUAL REFLECTIONS AND LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS ACROSS CULTURES by TAO FENG, BA, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HUMANITIES - STUDIES IN LITERATURE THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS May 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the result of hard work over the past five years. The dissertation itself took less than two years, but to become qualified to write it took more than three years. During these years, with the encouragement and instruction of the professors on my dissertation committee, I gradually improved my abilities and acquired the knowledge necessary for me to begin working on the dissertation with confidence and to complete it. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to members of my dissertation committee: Professors Ming Dong Gu, Rene Prieto, Adrienne McLean, and David Channell. Professor Gu supervised the project with his expertise on literary theories, Chinese and Western thought, Chinese literature, and comparative literature. He guided me in conceiving the thesis and the structural framework, read my drafts with great patience, and offered many valuable comments and suggestions. My skills of close reading and literary analysis were greatly improved under the guidance of Professor Prieto, who, with profound knowledge of comparative literature and critical analysis, helped me gain insights and enhance literary sensibilities. It was from the films representing the elderly in Professor McLean’s film classes that I first developed a deep understanding of old age and sympathy for elderly people. Her kind advice inspired me to explore old age and senior subjectivity. Professor Channell helped me in the area of history of ideas and provided me with his expertise in my search for relevant intellectual material. These professors made the project possible and successful. I would also like to express my gratitude to my friends, colleagues, classmates, and teachers at both The University of Texas at Dallas and Yangzhou University in China for their strong support and encouragement. Last but not least, I must thank my wife Wei iv Ge and my son Zhiji Feng for their love, understanding, and emotional support, without which this dissertation would not have been completed. This work is therefore dedicated to them. April 2018 v OLD AGE AND SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY: INTELLECTUAL REFLECTIONS AND LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS ACROSS CULTURES Tao Feng, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2018 Supervising Professor: Ming Dong Gu Old age is a subject in both intellectual thought and literary representations, but senior subjectivity is a topic that has not been adequately studied. To address this topic, this dissertation undertakes a comparative study of old age and senior subjectivity in Western and Eastern intellectual thought and literary works. Senior subjectivity is a notion that covers old people’s self-awareness, social identity, and cultural conditioning by external factors including language, ideology, human relationships, and social assessments. This study consists of two endeavors. The first endeavor reviews and compares historical views of old age by thinkers, scholars, and artists including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Goethe, and others in the West, and Shakyamuni, Confucius, Zhuangzi, and others in the East. The second endeavor analyzes various literary representations of old age in carefully chosen literary works from both Eastern and Western traditions. Both parts aim to uncover common and distinctive features in the conceptions and representations of senior subjectivity across cultures. In the West, views on old age are diversified and even conflicting, revealing Western people’s ambivalence toward the last phase vi of life. In China, however, the topic is much less controversial because of the integrated views of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism that tend to hold old age as a period of life which acquires wisdom through rich experiences and obtains peace of mind through self-cultivation. Throughout history, both Western and Chinese thoughts on senior subjectivity have inspired interesting representations in literature. In the West, two types of literary representations of senior subjectivity are generated: the miserable conditions of old age and the elderly’s wish for rejuvenation. In Chinese literature, the elderly are usually described as possessing wisdom and authority which can either benefit or harm interpersonal and intergenerational relations. My research on intellectual thought and close reading of certain fictional works have uncovered these findings: (1) senior subjectivity is constructed by the interplay between the awakened elderly consciousness and the senior identity conceived by such external powers as language, culture, and ideology during old age; (2) the construction of senior subjectivity is a long, dynamic and fluid process, which is determined by the elderly person’s encounters and challenges throughout life; (3) healthy senior subjectivity depends on a successful resolution of the conflicts between self-alienation and self-disalienation. The success or failure in achieving satisfactory subjectivity in old age is determined by whether or not a senior person is able to find peace and tranquility for the soul before reaching end of life. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………….………………………………………………………….iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………….…………………………...…….x INTRODUCTION…..…..………………………………………………………………………...1 PART I INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT ON OLD AGE AND SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY……...8 CHAPTER 1 CONCEPTUAL ISSUES OF SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY…………………………9 CHAPTER 2 A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN THE WEST.....37 CHAPTER 3 A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN THE EAST......67 PART II REPRESENTING SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN WESTERN FICTION…………….99 CHAPTER 4 NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY: A CASE STUDY OF FAULKNER’S ABSALOM, ABSALOM! AND OTHER LITERARY WORKS……………………………………………………………100 CHAPTER 5 A MODERN VERSION OF GOETHE’S FAUST: SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA…......................133 PART III REPRESENTING SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN CHINESE FICTION……………165 CHAPTER 6 SUBJUGATED BY FAMILY HIERARCHY: FEMALE SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS AND THE GOLDEN CANGUE……………………………………………………….166 CHAPTER 7 TRADITIONAL AND MODERN SENIOR SUBJECTIVITY IN CONFLICT AND HARMONY: A CASE STUDY OF LIN YUTANG’S MOMENT IN PEKING AND MO YAN’S FROG……………………………………………..196 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………232 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………238 viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………………253 CURRICULUM VITAE ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AA Absalom, Absalom! OM The Old Man and the Sea DR A Dream of Red Mansions GC The Golden Cangue MP Moment in Peking F Frog x INTRODUCTION Old age is a cross-cultural phenomenon for philosophical contemplation and also a cross-cultural topic for artistic representation. Aging is irreversible and unalterable. Everyone is expected to head for old age the moment he or she takes his or her first breath in the world. Despite all afflictions or ordeals, we generally strive for a longer and better life. But living longer does not necessarily mean living better, and old age does not mean golden age. On the contrary, many old people are just marginalized or abandoned by their families or society. Throughout human history, many thinkers and writers in different times and countries have developed their own ideas about the issue of old age. Such a history of ideas that reflect on the subject of old age and senior subjectivity constitute the major resources that I will explore in this dissertation. Research Objectives and Tentative Thesis Old age is a subject in both intellectual thought and literary representations, but senior subjectivity as a topic has not received adequate attention. In fact, it has only received cursory attention across cultures and there is, so far, no systematic study of this topic. To address this deficiency, this dissertation undertakes a comparative study of senior subjectivity in Western and Eastern intellectual thought and literary works. For this purpose, I will conduct historical, intellectual, and literary research into old age in the Eastern and Western traditions and inquire into how the elderly perceive and treat themselves, and how they are perceived and treated by others in intellectual and literary discourse. Having stated the aim of my dissertation, it is necessary to construct a conceptual framework and delimit its scope. Subjectivization is the process of transforming the self into 1 subject and therefore self and subject are intrinsically intertwined but often conflicting. The self is the original and uncontaminated identity that a person possesses before being drawn into social construction. It embodies the free and unconstrained human nature. Human beings are social creatures, so the self is inevitably confronted with challenges. During