Reading response

Regarding literature between the May Fourth and the outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese war, there are several features referred to Romanticism in literature—both in literary works and the author’s personalities and personal life. The symptoms of romanticism seem to be embodied in the writing of (autobiographical) romance in early twentieth century China, according to Prof. Leo Lee’s and Prof. Wang’s comments. The depression of sex and the depression of the nation are always among the most important issues in the literary text and the biographical context. Sexual depression and national depression intertwine in the literary writings and convey the confusion of the generation whom Leo Lee generalized as the generation of Romanticism. While Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” related his sinking in the sexual indulgence to the decadent of his homeland, Bai Wei’s “Fight out the ghost tower” displays a ghost tower dominated by the landlord Rongsheng’s longing for women’s body, and fight out the ghost tower is will liberate both the bodies of the women and the nation. The sexual desire and depression, sometimes deprivation dominated the pursuit of the social and national renovation in the literary works of the generation of the Romanticism. While the sexual depression becomes the national depression, or the disasters of the nation are analogized as the sexual depression, the emancipation of the nation will be lead to the extreme pole of the emancipation of the sex.

Some notes

I agree with Ting on her suspect on Professor Leo Lee’s statement of the relationship between the “Romanic heritage” and “modernity.” I feel that his “modernity” doesn’t focus on its technological meaning as well as the “rationalization and disenchantment” from Weber’s theory. He draws more attention to the development of self/ the individual in Chinese culture and society, which coincides with European Romanism to some point. As for Chinese modernity, as Professor Leo Lee said somewhere else, the most important aspects are the change of the concept of time, the formation of public space (according to the rise of print capital) and the emergence of nation (imagined community). But Chinese modernity does not merely derive from the western pattern; instead, it connotes a series of collisions between Chinese culture and western concepts at the turn of last century. Professor Lee tracing Chinese modernity back to the Six Dynasty in terms of subjective sentiment of Chinese literati therefore suggests his effort of seeking its Chinese origin.

I see many of you focus on Professor Lee’s book, so I try to do some reading of BAi Wei’s play in the following paragraphs.

It is noted that Bai Wei’s Fight Out of the Ghost Tower (1928) has to be rewritten because Xiang Peiliang grabbed the first edition of the play and refused to return it to her. To rewrite a literary work from nothing for the writer, as we can imagine, may be more difficult than the first time that it’s written. The reason is not only because the writer’s passions and inspirations for the literary creation may have been exhausted at the first time, but also because that it may take more energy to recollect the original plots and rearrange them according to the writer’s (fragmentary) memories, though the first version can never be retrieved just as we cannot step twice into the same river. During the rewriting process, other elements such as some unexpected incident, the traumatic experience of the author and so on may also be added to the difficulty.

Insofar as Bai Wei is concerned, under her worst health condition as well as the continuous strikes in personal life in 1927, she was still willing to take the difficulty and rewrite the play. The reason therefore may not only consist in her preference of the play and its plots. Her experiences in the real life during one year from 1926 to 1927 may constitute another drive for her second writing. In other words, Bai may have contextualized herself, in some way, between the lines of Fight. In reading the images of women in this play, some facts about the writer herself need to be kept in mind: firstly, Bai met Yang Sao again in Hangzhou in 1927 after Yang left Japan two years ago; secondly, to Bai the rejoicing of the reunion quickly turned into nightmares because of Yang’s continuous betrayals, and finally ended up at the ceremony of their marriage because Yang didn’t even show up; thirdly, she couldn’t resist the appeal of staying with Yang though they broke up in words. Those facts in all can be traced somewhat in the characteristics of the women protagonists in Fight: fainthearted, envious of other woman, fear of commitment (the woman revolutionary Xiao Sen hesitates to tell Yue Lin her real identity, and reveals their relationship only at the cost of her daughter’s life) as well as anxiety of independence (After Yue Ling is raped by her foster father, she “chooses” to live with him under his strong will, which indicates at once her mania and potential/ subconscious dependence as a woman). At the end of the play, after Yuelin shot Hu Rongsheng to death, the dying girl exulted at the overthrow of the ghost tower and the regaining of her life. Very ironically, the final symbolic rebirth of Yue Lin appears only at the cost the death of her physical body. If we take a close look at Yue Lin’s final words, Bai actually put a quotation mark on the word “birth” which, though cannot be told from the performance of the play, may imply her own suspects about the possibility of rebirth (emancipation) of woman in such a cannibal/ patriarchal society.

Other than her own romance, the April 12th incident in 1927 and its sequent impact may serve as footage to Bai’s depression of the revolution.

Many critics has indicated the striking resemblance between Bai Wei’s Fright Out of the Ghost Tower and Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm (1934) in terms of their similar setting, character and even dramatic conflicts. Most of them laud Thunderstorm more for its comparatively complicated description of character and reflection of the social conflicts. But here I would like to point out two features of Bai’s Fright compared with Thunderstorm. One is the image of man in the play from the perspective of a woman writer (p.s. Bai is obviously more relentless in her descriptions of the male characters), and the other is the unbalance between its main dramatic conflicts—the social conflicts indeed yield to the ethical conflicts, which may serve as a reason for the eclipse of the play.

I have to run now, because I have been 15 minutes late for another class. :)

RALLY TODAY!!

There will be an anti sexism protest today at 3pm in front of the science centre/loker where the second round of meetings betweent he faculty and Larry Summers will take place. I will be speaking at some point, so come out and support the cause and be my cheerleaders please!!

SR65