University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-2012 Narrative of modern Chinese masculinity in Ha Jin's fiction. Lezhou Su University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Su, Lezhou, "Narrative of modern Chinese masculinity in Ha Jin's fiction." (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1400. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1400 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NARRATIVE OF MODERN CHINESE MASCULINITY IN HA JIN'S FICTION By Lezhou Su BA in English Education, Guangxi Normal University, 2001 MA in Contemporary English and Linguistics, University of Reading, UK, 2005 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Division of Humanities University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky August 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Lezhou Su All Rights Reserved NARRATIVE OF MODERN CHINESE MASCULINITY IN HA JIN’S FICTION By Lezhou Su BA in English Education, Guangxi Normal University, 2001 MA in Contemporary English and Linguistics, University of Reading, UK, 2005 A dissertation approved on July 5th 2012 by the following dissertation committee Li Zeng, Dissertation Director Annette Allen Manuel Medina Patrick Pranke ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my mentor, Professor Li Zeng, for his guidance, support and inspiration. I consider myself one of the luckiest of people to have found such a mentor as him who has both intellectual brilliance and generosity of spirit. The spirit and wisdom I have learned from him are bound to benefit the rest of my life. I would like to sincerely thank Professor Annette Allen for her being on my committee and Professor Osborne P Wiggins. Both have consistently been offering academic, technical and moral support during my pursuit of the PhD in the past six years. Equally, my sincere thanks go to Professor Manuel Medina as my committee member for his offering advice on organization of chapters and transnational perspective of the dissertation, and above all, his effort and patience. I am indeed eager to express admire and thanks to Professor Patrick Pranke. It is a great honor to meet and talk with such a professor as him, whose knowledge, academic horizon and enthusiasm are all impressive to me. I cannot thank too much for his time and support. I am grateful to Morse and Schaffner, who have always been there as a IV patient listener whenever I feel frustrated. With their help, I am learning, slowly but surely, to be myself. Back in China, I must express my sincere gratitude to my dear sister Zhou Haiyi. Our communication on regular transpacific phone calls has been incessant source of inspiration these years. His existence always reminds me that I am not alone. Words suddenly go powerless when it comes to my dearest parents Su Jianji and Mo Tailun and siblings Su Lemin and Su Leyu. To them, especially to my brother Leyu Su who is battling against cancer, I dedicate this humble achievement. v ABSTRACT NARRATIVE OF MODERN CHINESE MASCULINITY IN HA JIN'S FICTION Lezhou Su July 5th 2012 This dissertation consists of readings of three selected novels by Ha Jin-Waiting, The Crazed, and A Free Life. These novels cover three historical periods of Contemporary China under the rule of the Communist Party in sequence-the Mao's era (1949-1976), post-Mao era (1976-1989) and post-Tiananmen Square Incident era (1989 onwards). The readings are predominated with gender issues in the literary works, particularly with the construction and representation of contemporary Chinese masculinity. Drawing mainly on the Kam Louie's theory which pins down traditional Chinese masculinity in terms of wen (literary power) and wu (physical power)-the two concepts deeply entrenched in Confucianism, the dissertation explores how wen and wu qualities continuously define contemporary Chinese manhood in the novels. Because the characters of the selected novels mainly are intellectuals, the emphasis of my analysis is on wen masculinity represented by this community. In terms of literary theories, the dissertation adopts mainly the Structuralism vi perspective, exploring dualities underlying the texts, which include, heroes vs. anti-heroes, nationalism vs. humanism. Apart from emphasizing the cultural continuity in the construction of Chinese masculinity, the dissertation also attempts to reveal the transformations of Chinese manhood in the broader context of the socio-political environment of contemporary China. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................ iv ABSTRACT ........................................................................................vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................1 A. Biographical Sketch of Ha Jin ............................................................3 B. Previous Scholarship Review ............................................................7 a. Transcendence in Ha Jin's Fiction .................................................7 b. Cultural Transplantation and Translation ....................................... 12 c. Neo-orientalism? ................................................................................... 13 C. Significance of Studying Masculinity in Ha Jin's fiction .......................... 15 D. Chapter Organization ..................................................................... 18 I. MASCULINITY: INVISIBLE AND UBIQUITOUS ......................................21 A. From Masculinities to Chinese Masculinities ....................................... 22 B. Masculinities of Wen (literary power) and Wu (physical power) ............... 35 C. From Wen and Wu to Confucian Ethics ............................................ .40 VlIl D. Social-political Environment-a Broader Context ................................ .49 a. Sex, Gender and Marriage Under Class Struggle .............................. 52 b. Chinese Masculinity and Sexuality in Post-Mao Era ........................... 56 E. Summary .....................................................................................59 II. WAITING: MANHOOD SMOTHERED IN MAO'S REGIME ........................ 63 A. Mixed Image of Traditional Scholar and Revolutionary Soldier. ................... 65 a. Wen-Wu in Lin ..........................................................................65 b. Deconstructive Reading of Wen-Wu in Lin ......................................70 B. Lingering Confucian Discourses around Marriage in Mao's Era ............... 77 C. Mao's Appropriation of Confucian Moral Discourse .............................. 82 D. Structuring wen in Meshwork of Other Type of Masculinities .................. 88 a. Brother-in-law Relationship ......................................................... 88 b. Comradeship in Mao's Era ..........................................................91 c. Lin and Gengyang-Wen Vs. Wu ..................................................93 E. Grotesque Bodies of the Party ......................................................... 95 F. Summary .....................................................................................98 III. THE CRAZED: WEN MASCULINITY CRISIS IN THE 1980S ................... 102 A. Literature, Intellectual, and Politics in Mao and post-Mao Eras ............. 102 B. Textual Analysis of The Crazed ...................................................... 109 a. Basic Plot ...............................................................................1 09 IX b. Repercussion of Cultural Revolution on Intellectuals ........................ 111 c. Autonomy and Masculinity Crisis ................................................. 115 d. Yang's Self-Contradictory Attitudes Towards Politics ....................... 119 e. Narrator-Anxiety and New Identity Search ................................... 125 f. Banping-Antithesis of Narrator ................................................... 131 h. Women's Image in Masculinity Crisis ........................................... 136 C. Summary .................................................................................. 141 IV. A FREE LIFE: TRANSNATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF CHINESE MANHOOD .......................................................................................145 A. Chinese Masculinity Construction in a Transnational Context of the 1990s .......................................................................................145 B. Reconstruction of Overseas Chinese Masculinity ............................... 150 C. Dildungroman in Reverse - Chinese Artists and Literati in the 1990s ...... 159 a. Nostalgia and Homeward Journey ............................................... 159 b. Consumerism, Commercialization and Wen Masculinity ................... 162 D. Love, Sexuality and Masculinity Construction ...................................