University of Alberta Revolutionary Trauma and Reconfigured Identities: Representing the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Scar Literature by Min Yang A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature ©Min Yang Fall 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Abstract Revolutionary Trauma and Reconfigured Identities: Representing the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Scar Literature While a number of studies have examined the scar literature movement (1977-1983), no study has thoroughly explored the psychological function of the scar metaphor, the emotional catharsis (or so called “qinsu shi”) and the “bright tails” (the so-called “guangming de weiba”) — the key paradigm of scar stories in most Chinese people’s expression and assimilation of the trauma wrought by the Cultural Revolution. Through examining psychological mechanisms of metaphorical thinking, identification, and guilt or shame, which were articulated in scar stories, this dissertation attempts to shed new light on how some Chinese people who went through personal afflictions during the Cultural Revolution worked through their memories and reconstructed their social identity after Mao. I will demonstrate that the key paradigm of scar literature emerged when some Chinese people (writers, readers, and protagonists) both confronted and denied a particular type of trauma, referred to here as revolutionary trauma, in interaction with a radical change in communist ideologies. I will place scar literature within the dynamics by which the Cultural Revolution was represented in Chinese culture to demonstrate: (1) how the denial of traumatic memories in the scar period became a foundation for interpreting personal and national trauma, and (2) how this denial impacted, and arguably reconstructed, Chinese cultural identity during socialist modernization in the 1980s and socialist commercialism in the 1990s. The scar literature movement was the first and also the largest cultural and literary movement to enunciate the trauma of the Cultural Revolution in Chinese society. Although the Cultural Revolution has been consistently criticized in political documents and literature, it gradually lost its empirical content, namely, its actual impact on both the social system and Chinese individuals. Though frequently mentioned, it nonetheless has been converted into a signifier without concrete historical reference. It is forgotten in its frequent, if superficial, remembering. However, I believe that to understand Chinese collective unconscious today we must understand how this trauma was mediated, recognized, and reconstructed in the Chinese people’s collective voice. Acknowledgement I express my utmost thankfulness to my supervisor, Professor Daniel Fried, who made me believe in myself and guided me through the whole process of writing this dissertation. I am especially indebted to Professor Donald Kuiken for his inspiration and assistance from the initial to the final stages enabled me to develop a comprehensive understanding of trauma studies and improve my dissertation in specific ways. I very much thank Professor Massimo Verdicchio and Professor Irene Sywenky for extending their kind concern in the completion of my PhD study, and I very much thank my two external committee members, Professor Lin Jenn-Shann and Professor Richard King, for their efforts and valuable comments on my dissertation. Last but not least, I would like to express my special gratitude to my loving and caring family. My dissertation would not have been possible to finish on time without their unconditional encouragement, understanding and support. Table of Contents Introduction The Scar Literature Movement: A Social Phenomenon in Recurrence ................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter one Shattering the Ideo-Centric Assumptive World: Revolutionary trauma ................................................................................................................... 28 The concept of revolutionary trauma .................................................................31 Shattering the assumptive world: the core of revolutionary trauma ..................36 Revolutionary trauma: an ideological upheaval and social symptoms ..............47 Between confronting and denial .........................................................................54 Working-through and ideology ..........................................................................61 Revolutionary trauma and its working-through revealed in scar literature ........65 Chapter two “Scar”: A Social Metaphor for Working through Revolutionary trauma ................................................................................................................... 73 Metaphor, trauma, and working-through ...........................................................76 "The Scar”: the scar metaphor and metaphorical thoughts ................................80 "Awake, My Brother”: the ruined trustworthy hero ...........................................96 Scar: a social metaphor for working-through ...................................................108 Reader’s receptions: social metaphor and social functions ..............................111 From Utopianism to Cat-ism: further social functions of the scar metaphor ...120 Chapter three Identification, Revolutionary Identity and Working through Revolutionary trauma .......................................................................................... 123 Constructing revolutionary identity: the Red Guards, violence and sacrifice..125 The tension of identification and working through ..........................................142 "A Branch Road Paved with Flowers” (1): the tension of two identifications 145 "A Branch Road Paved with Flowers” (2): transformation of identification in working-through .............................................................................................. 152 "A Branch Road Paved with Flowers” (3): sacrifice for denial .......................158 Other stories .....................................................................................................160 Scar writers: between empathy and distance....................................................165 Scar writers: internal-censorship vs. external-censorship ................................173 Chapter four Guilt, Confession and Working-through ....................................... 184 Posttraumatic guilt or shame, confession, and revolutionary trauma ..............187 The guilt of Mao’s Children: argument vs. confession ....................................193 Images of cadres and intellectuals ....................................................................211 The 57 writers: avoidance of guilt and trauma .................................................221 Shame vs. guilt: memories of senior intellectuals ............................................234 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 246 Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 253 1 Introduction The Scar Literature Movement: A Social Phenomenon in Recurrence A spectral is haunting Chinese society…, the spectral of the Cultural Revolution… Recently an episode involving several ex-Red Guards’ public apologies evoked Chinese people’s reconsideration of the Cultural Revolution (1966- 1976),1which has long been circulating in Chinese society as a powerful signifier 1 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (abbreviated as the Cultural Revolution) refers to a series of political and cultural movements inaugurated by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) to purge ideological dissent coming from the so-called revisionists in Chinese communist culture. Spanning the years from 1966 to 1976, the Cultural Revolution actually first appeared in the cultural sphere and included a bizzare concoction of literary and cultural critiques and political assaults until its end. Mao’s intention to launch a revolution was initially expressed by Yao Wenyuan on November 10, 1965 in Yao’s literary critique, “Criticism of the New Adaptation of the Historical Drama Hai Rui Dissmissed from His Office”.Supported sufficiently by historical facts, Yao argued that the image of Hai Yui (1515-1587, a well-regarded official in the Ming dynasty) in this historical drama deviated from the historical truth, and therefore “this ‘fake Hai Rui’ inappropriately replaced Marxist’s class struggle with revisionist class reconciliation” (Yao 1965: 16). Though a pure literary criticism on the surface, it actually attacked the author, Wu Han (1909- 1969), who was the vice major of Beijing and related