@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts, Faculty of"@en, "Asian Studies, Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "McClanaghan, Lillian"@en ; dcterms:issued "2010-09-02T18:28:44Z"@en, "1988"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """Chen Jo-hsi's two anthologies, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin) and Lao ren (Old Man) and her novel, Gui (Repatriates) depicts social and political conditions in China during the Cultural Revolution. Chen shows the effect of Cultural Revolutionary turbulence on the individual by focusing on his experience of loss. This study examines Chen's use of irony, imagery and psychological profile to portray the various forms of emotional, spiritual and physical losses sustained by her protagonists. Chen's fiction also reflects her seven year sojourn In China during which she experienced disillusionment and a loss of faith in the Marxist dream. Based on Peter Marris' model on loss and grief as outlined in Loss and Change, Chen's work can be seen as a literary catharsis for the tension that arises from her experience of loss and her subsequent resolution of grief. Marris' theory posits that an individual successfully resolves his grief when he is able to abstract meaning from the lost relationship and reformulate it in terms of his changed circumstances. This grieving process helps to explain a change in Chen's fiction from social commentary to political polemic and a corresponding decline in literary quality. In Mayor Yin she is content to merely document the losses sustained by her protagonists stemming from the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Essentially, her, fiction at this stage shows her attempt to record and validate her China experience. Her restrained tone and skillful use of structural and situational irony, nature Imagery and psychological portraiture to portray her protagonist's response to loss distinguishes this anthology from Old Man and Repatriates. As Chen's purpose of serving China is reformulated, her didactic style undermines the artistic integrity of her fiction. In Old Man Chen's compulsion to protest leads to intrusive commentary and manipulation of plot and character. Repatr iates which is an autobiographical document of Chen's journey towards the resolution of her loss also shows the effects of her renewed purpose. She resorts to using her fiction as a platform to protest against political oppression of the individual and to support basic human rights for the Chinese."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/28169?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note "LOSS IN CHEN JO-HSI'S FICTION By LILLIAN McCLANAGHAN B.A., The University of B r i t i s h Columbia, 1982 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of Asian Studies We accept t h i s thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September 1988 © L i l l i a n McClanaghan, 1988 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of M /fr/vf 5>Ttit>ii^S The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date 0<^' i>ln DE-6 (2/88) Abstract Chen Jo-hsi's two anthologies, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin) and Lao ren (Old Man) and her novel, Gui (Repatriates) depicts s o c i a l and p o l i t i c a l conditions in China during the Cultural Revolution. Chen shows the e f f e c t of Cultural Revolutionary turbulence on the individual by focusing on his experience of l o s s . This study examines Chen's use of irony, imagery and psychological p r o f i l e to portray the various forms of emotional, s p i r i t u a l and physical losses sustained by her protagonists. Chen's f i c t i o n also r e f l e c t s her seven year sojourn In China during which she experienced disillusionment and a loss of f a i t h in the Marxist dream. Based on Peter Marris' model on loss and g r i e f as outlined in Loss and Change, Chen's work can be seen as a l i t e r a r y catharsis for the tension that arises from her experience of loss and her subsequent resolution of g r i e f . Marris' theory posits that an individual suc c e s s f u l l y resolves his g r i e f when he is able to abstract meaning from the l o s t r elationship and reformulate i t in terms of his changed circumstances. This grieving process helps to explain a change in Chen's f i c t i o n from s o c i a l commentary to p o l i t i c a l polemic and a corresponding decline in l i t e r a r y q u a l i t y . In Mayor Yin she is content to merely document the losses sustained by her protagonists stemming from the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. E s s e n t i a l l y , h e r , f i c t i o n at t h i s i i stage shows her attempt to record and validate her China experience. Her restrained tone and s k i l l f u l use of st r u c t u r a l and s i t u a t i o n a l irony, nature Imagery and psychological portraiture to portray her protagonist's response to loss distinguishes t h i s anthology from Old Man and Repatriates. As Chen's purpose of serving China i s reformulated, her di d a c t i c s t y l e undermines the a r t i s t i c i n t e g r i t y of her f i c t i o n . In Old Man Chen's compulsion to protest leads to intrusive commentary and manipulation of plot and character. Repatr iates which is an autobiographical document of Chen's journey towards the resolution of her loss also shows the effects of her renewed purpose. She resorts to using her f i c t i o n as a platform to protest against p o l i t i c a l oppression of the individual and to support basic human rights for the Chinese. i i i Contents Abstract I i Introduction 1 Chapter One: Loss of Idealism 7 Biography 10 Chapter Two: Validation of the Past . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter Three: Reformulation of Purpose 56 Chapter Four: Resolution 103 Conclusion 131 iv Introduction After Chen Jo-hsi l e f t China in 1973, she produced two anthologies of short stories e n t i t l e d Yin Xianzhang (Mayor Yin) and Lao ren (Old Man) as well as a novel c a l l e d Gui (Repatriates) between 1974 and 1978. These s t o r i e s are set during the Cultural Revolution, one of the most turbulent periods in modern Chinese history. The predominant theme throughout t h i s period of Chen's work is that of loss stemming from p o l i t i c a l upheaval. Chen d e t a i l s the misfortune of her protagonists who are victims of the p o l i t i c a l process. Chen's f i c t i o n focuses on the losses sustained by her characters during the Cultural Revolution. Chen's protagonists suffer a range of s p i r i t u a l and psychological losses in the areas of love and personal happiness, friendship, job fulfilment and s o c i a l position, d i g n i t y of the individual and personal freedom. The protagonists also undergo an erosion of hope and f a i t h , of ideals and sense of purpose; they lose their self-esteem and ultimately experience a loss of ide n t i t y . In the extreme, Chen's characters also lose their l i v e s because of p o l i t i c a l persecution. E s s e n t i a l l y , Chen's f i c t i o n is a psychological document of loss . Much of the popular and c r i t i c a l attention that Chen's f i c t i o n has attracted is a resu l t of i t s h i s t o r i c a l s etting and i t s thematic content. Chen's l i t e r a r y technique is not p a r t i c u l a r l y noteworthy, although there are several l i t e r a r y devices which she uses with proficiency. This thesis examines 1 these more interesting aspects of Chen's writing by analyzing her use of s t r u c t u r a l and s i t u a t i o n a l irony, nature imagery to symbolize a protagonist's emotions and state of mind, and psychological portraiture to show the t r a g i c effects of loss. Insofar as Chen's f i c t i o n and personal experience during the Cultural Revolution is dominated by the theme of loss, I have examined her material in l i g h t of s o c i o l o g i c a l and psychological studies of loss and grieving. Peter Marris' theory on loss and change provides an interesting insight into the author and her preoccupation with the effects of the Cultural Revolution. E s s e n t i a l l y , Chen's f i c t i o n functions as a l i t e r a r y catharsis for the tension that arises from her own working through of g r i e f . For Chen, the pivotal development in t h i s period of her l i f e was her disillusionment with China's p o l i t i c a l system. Chen arrived as an enthusiastic repatriate in 1966 and l e f t China as a d i s i l l u s i o n e d i n t e l l e c t u a l in 1973. She subsequently devoted the next f i v e years to writing f i c t i o n about the Cultural Revolution. When she was asked why she l e f t China, she stated: \"Like a form.of r e l i g i o n , I l o s t my 1 f a i t h in Marxism\". This thesis shows that Chen's work r e f l e c t s her personal grieving process by examining her treatment of loss in t h i s body of f i c t i o n . Peter Marris discusses the psychological adjustment of loss which t y p i c a l l y begins with v a l i d a t i o n of the past, often by dwelling on memories, to a gradual reintegration, whereby the bereaved comes to accept new 2 circumstances with renewed purpose. Chen's l i t e r a t u r e during t h i s period r e f l e c t s the process outlined by Marris. In the f i r s t group of s t o r i e s , Chen s t r i c t l y documents loss, without her characters ever overcoming th e i r a d v e r s i t i e s . In a sense, she is r e - t e l l i n g her observations of the Cultural Revolution. Protagonists in Mayor Yin are cognizant of their loss to varying degrees but there is no resolution of the i r g r i e f . In the second c o l l e c t i o n of s t o r i e s , Old Man some of the characters respond to their predicament by r e s i s t i n g oppression. Their resistance, although limited, indicates p a r t i a l resolution. F i n a l l y in Repatr iates the protagonists resolve their g r i e f f u l l y in the form of reformulated purpose and meaning in their l i v e s . As Chen attains the objective of resolved gri e f which is renewal of purpose and meaning in l i f e , t h i s purpose becomes so overt that i t undermines the a r t i s t i c i n t e g r i t y of her work. Correspondingly, Chen's f i c t i o n which begins as s o c i a l commentary ends up as polemic. Chapter I consists of biographical information that is relevant to Chen's f i c t i o n . Although Chen's work is not s t r i c t autobiography i t contains clues which are helpful in understanding the reasons for her g r i e f . This chapter w i l l also explain b r i e f l y a theory of gr i e f proposed by Peter Marr i s . Chapter II i s a sequential analysis of the portrayal of loss in Chen's short stories in Mayor Yin. These st o r i e s are characterized by their function as s o c i a l commentary and their tone of r e s t r a i n t and understatement. This chapter also looks 3 at protagonists such as L i u Xiangdong and Geng Er whose feelings of disillusionment and loss are symbolic of the author's own experience. The fact that Chen is unable to s a t i s f a c t o r i l y resolve the problems of these i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists posed within the Mayor Yin st o r i e s is in i t s e l f evidence of her i n a b i l i t y to resolve her personal experience of g r i e f at t h i s stage. Chapter III is an analysis of Chen's technique in portraying loss in her short s t o r i e s in Old Man. These st o r i e s are distinguished from Mayor Yin by Chen's increased c r i t i c i s m of China's p o l i t i c a l system. Evidence of authorial intrusion r e f l e c t s Chen's new sense of mission. Her goal is no longer to document s o c i a l conditions but more e x p l i c i t l y to c r i t i c i z e . Chapter IV analyzes Repatr iates in terms of Chen's portrayal of the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s experience of loss, his moral dilemma and his subsequent resolution of g r i e f . Resolution of gr i e f i s indicated not only by declarative statements made by Chen's protagonists about their purpose in l i f e , but also by an inte r e s t i n g t r a n s i t i o n in Chen's use of Nature imagery to r e f l e c t her protagonists' resolved g r i e f . Unlike the st o r i e s in Mayor Yin and Old Man where Chen concentrates mainly on the inimical forces of Nature to symbolize her character's psychological state, in Repatr iates she also portrays the benign and b e n i f i c i e n t aspect of natural elements to correspond to the protagonist's changed state of mind. Repatriates documents the journey of the i n t e l l e c t u a l from 4 i n i t i a l loss to f u l l resolution of grief as shown by his sense of renewed purpose and meaning in l i f e . Based on many s i m i l a r i t i e s between Chen's personal history and the biographical d e t a i l s of her protagonist Xin Mei, Repatriates is a psychological record of Chen's journey towards resolution of her loss. As Chen's grie f is resolved, her purpose in l i f e manifests i t s e l f in her f i c t i o n . Chen uses her f i c t i o n to protest against oppression of the individual in China as well as to support basic human rights for the Chinese. 5 Notes to Introduction 1 Pai Hsien-yung, \"Wutuobang de zhuixun yu huanmie\" (Utopia: Quest and Disillusionment), in Yin Xianzhanq, p.30. 6 Chapter One Loss of Idealism In Chen Jo-hsi's preface to Mayor Yin (Yin Xianzhang), 1 she expresses regret and a sense of hollowness: \"In my seven-year stay on the mainland, I accomplished nothing, the land I t i l l e d yielded far from enough even to feed myself. As for teaching, I joined merely in deceiving other people's children.\" It i s l i k e l y that when Chen Jo-hsi arrived in Hong Kong in 1973 afte r spending seven years in China, she was experiencing a sense of loss as well as diminished purpose. Not only had she \"wasted\" seven years of her l i f e performing tasks that were of l i t t l e benefit but her i d e a l i s t i c v i s i o n of serving the motherland had helped only \" i n deceiving other people's children\". Chen did not write during her seven years in China from 1966 to 1973. Leo Lee suggests that writing for Chen following that period became an \"act of e x i s t e n t i a l 2 v a l i d a t i o n \" , an attempt to make sense of her China experience. Chen's struggle for v a l i d a t i o n produced the body of work being examined in this study: two short story anthologies e n t i t l e d Mayor Yin and Old Man and her f i r s t novel c a l l e d Repatr iates . The recurring theme in Chen's f i c t i o n of a Chinese i n t e l l e c t u a l who goes to China out of a sincere and p a t r i o t i c desire to \"build socialism\" but becomes severely d i s i l l u s i o n e d is representative of Chen's own experiences. Chen and her husband, Tuan Shih-yao arrived in Beijing in 1966 just as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was being launched. The 7 reason for the i r r e p a t r i a t i o n was ideological zeal. C.T. Hsia has stated that they were \"intoxicated with what seemed to be an extremely noble and s e l f - s a c r i f i c i n g idealism, and 3 this f a i t h was absolutely unshakeable\". Frederick Wakeman's assessment of Chen and her husband is that they were no di f f e r e n t from other Taiwanese graduate students studying in the United States in the early 1960's. After their a r r i v a l in the United States and learning of China's achievements for the f i r s t time, \"their i d e n t i f i c a t i o n with the People's Republic, therefore was both m i l i t a n t l y n a t i o n a l i s t and r a d i c a l l y s o c i a l i s t , both p o l i t i c a l l y p a t r i o t i c and s o c i a l l y A i d e a l i s t i c \" . Wakeman also states that Chen herself admitted that she and her husband worshipped Mao Zedong. They would read Chairman Mao's poems to each other at night and put his 5 book under th e i r pillows before going to sleep. Wakeman's description of p o l i t i c a l patriotism and s o c i a l idealism aptly describes the p r o f i l e of Chen's i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists. L i u Xiangdong in \"Night Duty\" (Zhi ye) returned to China because of his intense p a t r i o t i c , i d e a l i s t i c and s o c i a l i s t views. Geng Er in \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" (Geng Er zai Beijing) had returned to China, \" f i l l e d with hope for the future, confident that he could find his niche in the new 6 society\". S i m i l a r l y , the protagonists Xin Mei and her husband Tao Xinsheng in Repatr iates decide to go to China because they are motivated by a p a t r i o t i c s p i r i t and a sincere 7 desire to participate in \"national reconstruction\". After Chen Jo-hsi and her husband arrived in Beijing in 8 October 1966 she gave b i r t h to her f i r s t son, named Tuan 8 Lien. For the next two years, Chen and her family l i v e d in 9 the \"Overseas Chinese Building\" (Hua Qiao Da x i a ) , waiting to be assigned to a work unit. F i n a l l y , they were sent to East China Hydraulic Engineering College (Hua Dong S h u i l i Xueyuan) in Nanjing. Chen's husband had requested a teaching or research position in f l u i d mechanics, his f i e l d of specialty, but was assigned instead to the f i e l d of flood control. In response to his query about the assignment, the m i l i t a n t c u l t u r a l revolutionaries that had assumed control of the unit in charge of Overseas Chinese r e p l i e d , \"water is a f l u i d , 10 is n ' t i t ? \" When they arrived in Nanjing in February 1969, they discovered that the Hydraulic Engineering College, l i k e other educational i n s t i t u t i o n s had been closed by the Red Guards. Chen's husband dug coal for the next three months. Later, he was transferred to a \"May Seventh Cadre School\" in northern Jiangsu province to be \"reeducated\" in accordance with the d i r e c t i v e that was issued based on Mao Zedong's b e l i e f that I n t e l l e c t u a l s and those who had been educated before 1949 were tainted by \" r e v i s i o n i s t educational l i n e s \" . I n t e l l e c t u a l s , along with cadres were sent to the countryside to be \" p u r i f i e d \" by learning from workers, peasants and 11 s o l i d e r s . Chen remained at the College and took care of the 12 children whose parents had been sent to \"May Seventh\" farms. Chen Jo-hsi had a second son, named Tuan Yuan in Nanjing. During the May Seventh campaign, Chen and her husband were 13 separated for two years. In 1972 when the college reopened, 9 she taught English in the Foreign Language Department. That same year, Chen was sent to Workers' University (Gongren 14 Daxue) in Shanghai to learn from model teachers. She returned to the Hydraulic Engineering College just as her husband finished his period of labour reform. After his return, they decided in early 1973 to request permission to leave China. On November 14, 1973, Chen and her family arrived in Hong Kong. They l i v e d there for one year before moving to Vancouver, B r i t i s h Columbia. Over the next five years, Chen Jo-hsi produced the body of f i c t i o n that is being examined in t h i s t h e s i s . Biography Biographical information on Chen Jo-hsi is given here to provide some background reference to her work. Chen Jo-hsi, the pen name of Chen Hsiu-mei was born in Taipei in 1938. She grew up in the countryside where both her father and grandfather had been carpenters. Chen's e a r l i e s t f i c t i o n consists of short stories she wrote for L i t e r a r y Magazine (Wenxue zazhi) while she was an undergraduate student at National Taiwan University. An English t r a n s l a t i o n of these st o r i e s were published in an anthology c a l l e d S p i r i t C a l l i n g : Tales about Taiwan (Shou Hun) under her pseudonym of Lucy Chen. Chen graduated in 1961 from National Taiwan University as an English l i t e r a t u r e major. She went to the United States in 1962 for advanced studies at Mount Holyoke College in Baltimore. A year l a t e r , she transferred to Johns Hopkins 10 University and obtained an M.A. in Literature from Johns Hopkins' Writing Seminars in 1965. She and her fiance, Tuan Shih-yao, a Ph.D. student whom she had met in the United States were married in 1964. Two years l a t e r , Chen and her husband embarked on their seven-year sojourn to China. Chen and her family li v e d in Beijing for two years before moving to Nanjing where they li v e d u n t i l they l e f t in 1973. After Chen and her family arrived in Hong Kong in 1973, she taught English at a junior high school. It was during th i s time that Chen resumed writing upon the urging of C.T. Hsia. Her short s t o r i e s which were later compiled in the Mayor Yin anthology f i r s t appeared in various Hong Kong newspapers between 1974 and 1975. In November 1974, Chen and her family l e f t Hong Kong for Vancouver. Chen obtained a job as a bank t e l l e r while she l i v e d in Vancouver, During t h i s period, she wrote Old Man and Repatr iates . She moved to C a l i f o r n i a in the f a l l of 1979 where she did research on the p o l i t i c a l terminology of the Cultural Revolution at the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of C a l i f o r n i a Berkeley. She has subsequently produced Yuan j ian, and Chenqli chenqwai (which deal with both Taiwanese immigrants and scholars from China who are l i v i n g in the United States), as well as Shenghuo s u i b i , Tu wei and Xingxing Zhaoyao wo. Harold Simonson in Strategies in C r i t i c i s m quotes Frederick Crewes, a psychological c r i t i c who states that \"the l i t e r a r y work which is completely free from i t s biographical 11 15 determinants is not to be found\". Although the theory of intentional f a l l a c y supports a more i n t r i n s i c approach to the study of l i t e r a t u r e , i t would be l i m i t i n g to ignore the biographical elements with which Chen's f i c t i o n of t h i s period is imbued. Simonson also goes on to say that an a r t i s t and his art are not mutually exclusive, that i s , art does not spring from a vacuum but from \"some inner necessity of the 16 a r t i s t \" . In a l e t t e r written to a friend just after Chen l e f t China, she confides: \"I believe that you already understand the reason for our leaving China. I want to speak of my experiences of these past few years but am unable to. This thin sheet of l e t t e r paper cannot shoulder my heavy and complex f e e l i n g s . \" The Mayor Yin s t o r i e s , Chen's f i r s t s t o r i e s after she resumed writing, evolved therefore from her necessity to express those \"complex feelings\". Chen has stated that she wrote these s t o r i e s to dispel her feelings of 18 depression, in memory of her friends and also because she 19 was lonely. Simonson states also that \"art is never so general that the person from whose mind and personality i t 20 originated is refined out of existence\". Personality at t h i s point may be defined to include thoughts, dreams, ideals, b e l i e f s and g r i e f . Mayor Yin, Old Man and Repatriates therefore can be seen as a r e f l e c t o r of Chen's necessity to express her loss as well as to make sense of her seven-year experience in China. Chen's experience of loss and i t s influence upon her f i c t i o n may be better understood using a theory of loss and 12 g r i e f formulated by Peter Marris in Loss and Change. There are two reasons for invoking psychological theory in studying Chen's work. F i r s t , Chen acknowledges that she experienced a loss of f a i t h in Marxist ideology. Her reliance on the themes of disillusionment and loss of purpose of the i n t e l l e c t u a l s which appear again and again in her work suggests that they are important psychological issues to her. Second, Chen's stated motives for writing Mayor Yjjn, Old Man and Repatriates contain clues that indeed some inner compulsion was moulding the shape of her work. Marris 1 theory provides an explanation for the curious change in Chen's f i c t i o n from s o c i a l commentary characterized by unobtrusive narrative voice to polemic as indicated by lapses into s t r i d e n t , intrusive and authoritative commentary in the narrative. Current l i t e r a t u r e on gr i e f tends to examine th i s human response within the r e l a t i v e l y narrow context of death and dying, although Freud's d e f i n i t i o n i s much broader. Freud includes in his d e f i n i t i o n of mourning losses of abstraction which have taken the place of a person such as \"one's country, 21 l i b e r t y , an i d e a l \" . Peter Marris in Loss and Change s i m i l a r l y defines gri e f in a wider context. He has drawn from his work on the effects of bereavement to construct a theory of g r i e f that i s also applicable to any si t u a t i o n where people experience loss, or \"where the pattern of l i f e has been 22 r a d i c a l l y a ltered\". Marris argues that the dynamic of grieving or internal struggle \"appears again and again, in 23 transmuted form, in response to many kinds of lo s s \" . 13 The i n t r a p e r s o n a l c o n f l i c t w h i c h M a r r i s b e l i e v e s g r i e f a l w a y s i n v o l v e s a r i s e s f rom i t s b a s i c a l l y c o n t r a d i c t o r y i m p u l s e s . These i m p u l s e s a r e : \" t o p r e s e r v e what i s i m p o r t a n t and m e a n i n g f u l f rom the p a s t a n d , a t the same t i m e t o r e -e s t a b l i s h a m e a n i n g f u l p a t t e r n o f r e l a t i o n s h i p s i n w h i c h the 24 l o s s i s a c c e p t e d \" The second i m p u l s e i s o f t e n b l o c k e d by r e a c t i o n s t o the l o s s , s u c h as the need t o e x p r e s s the l o s s , t o v a l i d a t e the p a s t r a t h e r t h a n d i s m i s s i t , and t o a c h i e v e some s o r t o f c o n t i n u i t y i n meaning between o n e ' s p a s t and o n e ' s p r e s e n t and f u t u r e . S u c c e s s f u l r e s o l u t i o n or w o r k i n g t h r o u g h o f g r i e f o c c u r s when \"a sense o f purpose i s g r a d u a l l y d e t a c h e d f rom t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p w h i c h i n c o r p o r a t e d i t , and so 25 r e f o r m u l a t e d t h a t i t can once a g a i n i n t e r p r e t e v e n t s . \" I n M a r r i s ' a n a l y s i s o f the g r i e v i n g of be reavement , he uses the example o f widowhood as the c l e a r e s t d e m o n s t r a t i o n o f t h e p s y c h o l o g i c a l ad ju s tmen t t o d i s r u p t i v e l o s s or change . R e s o l u t i o n o f g r i e f i n v o l v e s r e s t o r i n g \"a sense o f c o n t i n u i t y . . . b y d e t a c h i n g the f a m i l i a r meanings o f l i f e f rom the r e l a t i o n s h i p i n w h i c h t h e y were embod ied , and r e -26 e s t a b l i s h i n g them i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f i t . \" M a r r i s s t a t e s t h a t i n t he b e g i n n i n g the widow i s u n a b l e t o s e p a r a t e her sense of purpose and meaning f rom the husband \"who f i g u r e d so c e n t r a l l y 27 i n t h e m \" . But as t i m e goes o n , she s t a r t s t o \" r e f o r m u l a t e 28 l i f e i n te rms w h i c h a s s i m i l a t e the f a c t o f h i s d e a t h \" . The p r o c e s s o f g r i e v i n g or p s y c h o l o g i c a l ad ju s tmen t t o l o s s b e g i n s w i t h the widow a c t i n g as i f her husband was s t i l l w i t h h e r ; t h e n she b e g i n s t o imag ine what he wou ld have s a i d and done ; 14 next, she plans her future and the future of her children in terms of what he would have wished or expected; u n t i l f i n a l l y she acts in accordance with her desires. Therefore, according to Marris, g r i e f is resolved \"not by ceasing to care for the dead, but by abstracting what was fundamentally important in 29 the r e l a t i o n s h i p and r e h a b i l i t a t i n g i t \" . Marris proposes that g r i e f i s evoked not only by death but by any disruptive loss in meaning hence his model of resolution of gr i e f i s applicable to a range of c r i t i c a l personal and s o c i a l changes. Marris' theory that \"loss disrupts our a b i l i t y to find meaning in experience and that g r i e f represents the struggle to retrieve t h i s sense of meaning when circumstances have 30 bewildered or betrayed i t \" is helpful as an aid to understanding the shape and c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of Chen's f i c t i o n . Using Chen's portrayal of the i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonist and his response to loss as a guide, the influence of g r i e f on her work can be detected. The experiences of Chen's i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists a l l f i t into the same pattern. T y p i c a l l y , the i n t e l l e c t u a l arrives in China from the United States with an i d e a l i s t i c sense of mission, but discovers that he exists on the periphery of Chinese society as a p o l i t i c a l outsider. Due to Cultural Revolutionary p o l i t i c s his hopes diminish as \"the 31 status of i n t e l l e c t u a l s s t e a d i l y deteriorates\". Chen's i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonist becomes increasingly disappointed as he notes the discrepancy between his i d e a l i s t i c b e l i e f s and the actual conditions he observes. He experiences 15 overwhelming despair which arises as much from the awareness of the gap between r e a l i t y and his ideals as from his sense of betrayal -- both of his purpose and of his i d e n t i t y . Marris states that once an individual \"has set his heart on an attachment, a role in l i f e , disappointment w i l l arouse 32 g r i e f \" . This is because: \"we organize our purposes as much about hopes for the future as about our present l i f e , sometimes id e n t i f y i n g with what we w i l l become more meaningfully than with what we are. To f a i l a c r u c i a l examination, miss a coveted job, to be brought up to a position which the world no longer provides may a l l threaten the purposes and expectations about which the meaning of l i f e has been constructed. They defeat assumptions about the future which have already become c r u c i a l to our id e n t i t y . In such a s i t u a t i o n people suffer a loss of i d e n t i t y , at least in prospect, even though the sense of bereavement may come from a gradual recognition of f a i l u r e , rather than any definable event.\" 33 The loss of purpose in Chen's i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonist i n i t i a t e s the same response of g r i e f as bereavement. As Marris describes, loss causes despair, because a \" c r i s i s of dis c o n t i n u i t y \" ensues from the \" d i s c r e d i t i n g of familiar assumptions\". As the i n t e l l e c t u a l r e a l i z e s that his perceived role in society as well as his previously held b e l i e f s are i n v a l i d , he experiences a c r i s i s of i d e n t i t y . Liu Xiangdong in \"Night Duty\", Geng Er in \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" , and Xin Mei and other i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists in the novel Repatriates agonize over their predicament as they confront their loss of purpose. If they are to continue they must acquire new meaning in th e i r circumstances. Their dilemma revolves around 16 how they can function in Chinese society and s t i l l l i v e a l i f e that is consistent with their ideals. This problem is not addressed in the stories in Mayor Yin or Old Man but becomes the main focus in Repatr iates. Chen has stated that \"..I want to write about people and things that I am familiar with, (and I) s t r i v e for o b j e c t i v i t y 34 and authenticity\". The experiences of Chen's i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists are more than l i k e l y representative of her own impressions in China. Chen had gone to China with an i d e a l i s t i c v i s i o n of serving the \"motherland\". When she lo s t her f a i t h in Marxist ideology, she also l o s t her sense of purpose which was inextricably t i e d to \"serving the people\" in China. According to Marris' theory, successful resolution of gr i e f would necessitate that Chen be able to extricate what had been important in the past r e l a t i o n s h i p and reformulate i t in terms of her changed circumstances. What had been important to Chen was her i d e a l i s t i c b e l i e f in \"serving the people\" of her country. After Chen l e f t China, l i k e the widow who has los t her husband, she lo s t her point of reference in terms of purpose and meaning in l i f e . As Chen resolves her g r i e f , her purpose is extricated from the association with her phy s i c a l l y being present in China to a new sense of mission outside the country. That sense of mission involves fusing her p o l i t i c a l 35 views with her f i c t i o n . Chen's f i c t i o n r e f l e c t s her grieving process in the t r a n s i t i o n from indeterminate purpose in Mayor Yin where Chen seems s a t i s i f e d to simply describe her protagonist's loss, to 17 Old Man where beginnings of her compulsion to voice p o l i t i c a l dissent manifest i t s e l f in e d i t o r i a l commentary, to Repatr iates in which renewed mission motivates her to use f i c t i o n as a means for c r i t i c a l protest of p o l i t i c a l conditions in China. 18 Notes to Chapter One 1 Chen Jo-hsi, Preface to Yin Xianzhang, p.43 as quoted in Leo Ou-fan Lee, \"Dissent Literature from the Cultural Revolution\", Chinese Li t e r a t u r e : Essays, A r t i c l e s , Reviews, vol.1, Jan.1979, p. 60. 2 Leo Ou-fan Lee, \"Dissent Literature from the Cultural Revolution\", Chinese Li t e r a t u r e : Essays, A r t i c l e s , Reviews, vol.1, Jan.1979, p.60. 3 C.T. Hsia, \"Chen Jo-hsi de xiaoshuo\" (Chen Jo-hsi's short s t o r i e s ) , Chen Jo-hsi z l xuan j1 (Self-Selected Stories by Chen Jo-hsi), (Taipei:Yuan jing chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 4. 4 Frederic Wakeman J r . , \"The Real China\", The New York Book Review of Books, 25, no.12, (July 20, 1978), p. 9. 5 Ibid., p. 9, Wakeman c i t e s comments made by Chen Jo-hsi at the Berkeley Regional Seminar in Chinese Studies May 20, 1978. 6 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, trans, by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 168. (Hereafter, The Execution of Mayor Yin). 7 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui (Repatriates), (Taipei: Lian he bao she, 1978), p. 325. 8 Frederic Wakeman, p. 10. 9 Chen Jo-hsi, Shenghuo sui b i (Jottings on L i f e ) , (Taipei: Shi bao wen hua chu ban s h i , 1981), p. 114. 10 Frederic Wakeman, p. 10 c i t e s Chen Jo-hsi's comments at the Berkeley Regional Seminar ln Chinese Studies. 11 Lowell Dittmer and Chen Jo-hsi, Ethics and Rhetor i c of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of C a l i f o r n i a , 1981), p. 58 12 Frederic Wakeman, p. 10. 13 C.T. Hsia, p. 23. 14 Frederic Wakeman, p. 13. 15 Harold P. Simonson, Strategies in C r i t i c i s m , (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 67. 19 16 i b i d . , p. 87. 17 C.T. Hsia, p. 5. 18 Chen Jo-hsi, Postscript to Chen Jo-hsi z i xuan j i (Self Selected Stories by Chen Jo-hsi), (Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 235. 19 Chen Jo-hsi, Preface to Yin xlanzhang (Mayor Yin), (Taipei: Yuan ji n g chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 43. 20 Harold P. Simonson, p. 81. 21 Sigmund Freud, \"Mourning and Melancholia\", The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol.14, (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), p. 243. 22 Peter Marris, Loss and Change (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), p. 3. 23 Ibid. / p. 12. 24 Ibid. / p. 31. 25 Ibid. / p. 88 26 Ibid. / p. 34. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 / I b i d . / p. 147 31 Chen Jo-hsi, 32 Peter Marr i s , 33 Ibid. 34 Chen Jo-hsi, Postscript to Chen Jo-hsi z i xuan j i , p. 234. 35 Chen Jo-hsi, \"*Chengli chengwai' de j i u f e n \" (The Dispute of \"Fortress Beseiged'), Postscript to Chengli Chengwai (Fortress Beseiged), (Taipei: Shi bao chu ban gong s i , 1981), p. 223. 20 Chapter Two Validation of the Past Chen has acknowledged that she l e f t China because she lo s t her f a i t h In Marxist ideology. As Marris states, loss of any kind e s p e c i a l l y when the pattern of l i f e has been r a d i c a l l y altered, w i l l evoke g r i e f . This response of gri e f in the individual i n i t i a l l y consists of an impulse to preserve what Is s i g n i f i c a n t and meaningful from the past. This also includes a desire to express the loss and to validate the past. Chen's Mayor Yin s t o r i e s which were written from a 1 \"sorrowful heart\" attest to the i n t i a l impulse of her grieving process. Consequently, the s t o r i e s r e f l e c t Chen's need to express her loss as well as her attempt to validate her China experience. As such, these s t o r i e s are s o c i a l commentary, documenting the calamitous effects of the Cultural Revolution. Those effects are symbolized by the common theme of loss weaving through her s t o r i e s . In Mayor Yin, Chen portrays a loss of ideals, hope, freedom and privacy, and in the most extreme case, a loss of l i f e . At t h i s stage of Chen's grieving process her g r i e f is unresolved — she has not reformulated meaning and new purpose in her changed circumstances. Chen's f i c t i o n p a r a l l e l s t h i s stage of her g r i e f . Correspondingly, her protagonists who are symbols of dispossession with which her own loss is i d e n t i f i e d , do not experience any resolution of t h e i r loss. In t h i s chapter, I w i l l analyze each story in sequence in r e l a t i o n to the dominant theme of loss. Chen's technique of 21 developing t h i s theme of loss, p a r t i c u l a r l y her e f f e c t i v e use of s t r u c t u r a l and s i t u a t i o n a l irony, narrative voice and nature imagery are also examined. Key elements of loss w i l l be discussed in r e l a t i o n to Marris' theory of g r i e f . In addition, I w i l l also comment on the results of Chen's personal g r i e f as manifested in her f i c t i o n . Chen has stated that she i s often more interested in a story's irony in terms of i t s s o c i a l background and r e a l i t y of 2 l i f e than in l i t e r a r y technique. Consequently, the shortcomings of these s t o r i e s i s that they are r a r e l y embellished with complex d e t a i l s of plot. Chen often prefers to \" t e l l \" rather than \"show\" the story's message through descriptive narrative that is focused on a single incident or event. As a r e s u l t , Chen's s t r u c t u r a l l y s i m p l i s t i c s t o r i e s are characterized by linear plot development. Chen does occasionally r e l y on flashback sequences to provide d e t a i l s of her protagonist's experiences but It Is used only as a means to l i n k the character's past and present in the narrative consciousness. Chen's reliance on the theme of an i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonist who returns to China becomes r e p e t i t i o u s . Either the narrative of a story is relayed from the viewpoint of a f i r s t - p e r s o n narrator who i s both a repatriate and an i n t e l l e c t u a l from abroad (as in \"Jing-Jlng's Birthday\", \"Ren Xlulan\" and \"Residency Check\") or the narrative, t o l d from an omniscient viewpoint concentrates on the fate of the I n t e l l e c t u a l who has returned to China (as in \"Night Duty\" and \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" ) . Chen's sorrow as i n i t i a l impetus to her c r e a t i v i t y r e s u l t s in the most successful story in th i s c o l l e c t i o n -- \"Mayor Yin\". In terms of s t y l e and l i t e r a r y technique, t h i s story best-demonstrates Chen's s k i l l f u l approach to c r y s t a l l i z i n g the i r o n i c nature of a story. Chen's use of s t r u c t u r a l and s i t u a t i o n a l irony serves to create a cumulative sense of loss i n the story's effect upon the reader. The mechanism of st r u c t u r a l irony at work revolves around Chen's use of a narrator whose presence further emphasizes the t r a g i c fate of Mayor Yin, the protagonist. This emphasis is achieved through an i r o n i c contrast between the narrator's emotional detachment and the horror of events he recounts. Mayor Yin or Yin Feilong was a former Guomindang o f f i c e r who defected to the Communist side upon a promise of safety for his s o l d i e r s and a chance to begin new l i v e s . He was commended for meritorious service during the revolution and became the acting mayor of a small town c a l l e d Xing An in Shensi province. He has l o y a l l y followed d i r e c t i v e s during numerous p o l i t i c a l campaigns but, due to the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c twists and turns of these campaigns, he now finds himself a target of a l o c a l struggle in the most recent one, the Cultural Revolution. Vague charges of having covered up his true background and shooting a Communist sol d i e r are brought against him. The result i s the Red Guards' demand that the 3 \"blood debt be paid in blood\". The story concludes with a description of Mayor Yin's execution told to the narrator by the cousin of Xiao Zhang, a Red Guard. 23 The theme of loss in t h i s story i s presented d i r e c t l y through i t s denouement -- the murder of Mayor Yin. The theme's impact however is maximized i n d i r e c t l y through the devices of s i t u a t i o n a l and st r u c t u r a l Irony. Situational irony exists ln the circumstances leading to Mayor Yin's arrest and execution. In the late 1940's Mayor Yin f e l t that his family's c l a s s i f i c a t i o n as \"poor peasants\" was not \"being t r u t h f u l to the Party\" so he requested a change to that of \" r i c h peasant\". This change is I r o n i c a l l y misinterpreted by his accusers twenty years later as an attempt to \"masquerade as a r a d i c a l \" and conceal his true background. Despite Mayor Yin's l o y a l t y to the Party, he i s condemned to death. The irony of his s i t u a t i o n is heightened when he continues to profess his f a i t h in the Party and Chairman Mao even as he Is being driven to the execution grounds. In order to s t i f l e Mayor Yin's shouts of \"Long Live Chairman Mao\", Xiao Zhang, a Red Guard gags his r e l a t i v e ' s mouth with a handkerchief so that the executioners can shoot him. When a peasant asks the Red Guard, \"How could they shoot him when he was shouting 4 *Long Live Chairman Mao I' l i k e that\" , the youth is unable to answer. Another example of s i t u a t i o n a l irony which reinforces the sense of loss in the story l i e s in the fate of a Red Guard 5 named Xiao Zhang. Xiao Zhang, who is a distant r e l a t i v e of Mayor Yin meets with an i r o n i c fate as well. Xiao Zhang, who has flaunted his position in his meteoric r i s e to p o l i t i c a l power as a Red Guard, f a l l s just as rapidl y because of his involvement in f a c t i o n a l disputes. Although Xiao Zhang may have believed that by denying any feelings of kinship for his r e l a t i v e , Mayor Yin and by taking the lead as one of his accusers, his l o y a l t y to the campaign would then be proved, he himself becomes a v i c t i m of the Cultural Revolution. Wanted by the a u t h o r i t i e s for his involvement in violence and m i l i t a n t t a c t i c s , he i s forced to go into hiding. The story's theme of loss i s also enhanced by Chen's ef f e c t i v e use of s t r u c t u r a l irony. This covert form of irony which exists in the interplay between the detached and uninvolved narrator and the reader is very similar to the mechanism of irony at work in Lu Xun's story \"New Year's 6 S a c r i f i c e \" (Zhu f u ) . In Patrick Hanan's discussion of the mechanism of irony present in Lu Xun's s t o r i e s , he states that irony functions to raise something in the reader's estimation while appearing to lower i t , or conversely of lowering something in the reader's assessment while appearing to raise i t . In \"New Year's S a c r i f i c e \" the narrator's moral ambivalence and emotional detachment emphasize Xiang Li n Sao's trag i c fate a l l the more because the irony present raises Xiang Lin Sao's worth in the reader's eyes and at the same time lowers the narrator's worth. Chen's narrator in \"Mayor Yin\" has a similar function in the mechanism of s t r u c t u r a l irony at play in the story. Like Lu Xun's narrator in \"New Year's S a c r i f i c e \" who is deemed by Patrick Hanan to be s l i g h t l y false because his s e n s i t i v i t y f a i l s to measure up to the standard of moral i n t e g r i t y set by the implied author's conscience, Chen's narrator is also shown to be inadequate. The narrator's flaws are revealed when Mayor Yin approaches him, the v i s i t o r from \"outside\" for his expert opinion. When Mayor Yin asks him, \"Just why are we 7 having t h i s Cultural Revolution?\", the narrator can only parrot stock answers: \"..at that moment I myself was unclear as to the actual significance and purpose of the Cultural Revolution, I could only r e c i t e to him a l l the familiar statements that I had read ln the papers and heard in various 8 discuss ions\". Another example of the narrator's f a i l u r e to l i v e up to the implied author's standard of i n t e g r i t y occurs when Mayor Yin, after hearing from the narrator that Liu Shaoqi's essay was considered \"poison\" because of his references to Confucius and Mencius, points out to the narrator that Chairman Mao had also quoted the two philosophers. The narrator s k i r t s the issue by responding with \"When Chairman Mao uses them that's d i f f e r e n t , of course.... But when other people use them i t ' s with the u l t e r i o r motive of serving their counterrevolutionary 9 aims.\" The narrator's thought: \"Since I wasn't much clearer 10 on t h i s point than he, I hurriedly changed the subject\" makes him seem unreliable and \" s l i g h t l y f a l s e \" because he f a i l s to admit to his lack of knowledge about the si g n i f i c a n c e of recent p o l i t i c a l events. The narrator's worth i s further undermined by the irony inherent in his remonstration to Mayor Yin to \"have f a i t h in the p o l i c i e s of the Party and the people, and above a l l to believe in Chairman Mao's doctrine of 26 11 \" c r i t i c i z i n g severely but sentencing l e n i e n t l y \" 1 . What ensues in the plot is that the \"lenient\" sentence that Mayor Yin receives results in his execution. Once the r e l i a b i l i t y and moral i n t e g r i t y of the narrator i s brought into question, the reader is forced to arr i v e at an independent assessment of the narrator instead of continuing to follow him as a guide to interpretating events. The gap that opens up between the reader and the narrator causes the reader to s h i f t his sympathetic a l l i a n c e from the narrator to the character of Mayor Yin. This transfer of sympathy is doubly ensured when iro n i c contrast is presented between t h i s impersonal and detached narrator and the horrib l e events he recounts. The narrator's emotional detachment from the news of Mayor Yin's death as well as his c i t i n g one of Mao Zedong's quotations that \"people die a l l the time\" when he hears of Lao Yin's death further i s o l a t e s him from the reader. The narrator's role in \"Mayor Yin\" is not just a device to i s o l a t e the reader from Mayor Yin thereby \"achieving an 12 objective and sober r e s u l t \" as suggested by Pai Hsien-yung. The narrator's function in \"Mayor Yin\" is to ensure a positive and sympathetic reaction to Mayor Yin as well as to lend emphasis to his grievous end. This is achieved through the mechanism of st r u c t u r a l irony whereby the narrator's moral inadequacy raises Mayor Yin's worth in the reader's estimation while his own worth i s lowered. At the same time, i r o n i c contrast between the narrator's detached tone and the dreadful events he recounts further heightens the sense of loss 27 surrounding Mayor Yin's t e r r i b l e fate. In addition to Chen's use of irony in developing the theme of loss of l i f e in \"Mayor Yin\", she also uses Nature imagery to r e f l e c t a corresponding mood of despondency. As Wai-lim Yip points out, Chen r e l i e s on gradual changes in environmental conditions to r e f l e c t the gravity of events in 13 her story. After the narrator learns of Mayor Yin's execution, the sadness of the s i t u a t i o n is refl e c t e d in his observation that \"the sun had long been driven to some unknown 14 place, and the desolate sky was a sheet of yellow mist.\" The association between the image of a \"desolate\" sky and the pathos of Mayor Yin's fate strengthens the mood of forlornness and dejection as the narrator learns the d e t a i l s of Mayor Yin's death. In addition to using physical setting to create mood and to mirror a protagonist's emotional state, Chen uses physical s e t t i n g as a portent of doom. For example, when the narrator returns to Xing An a second time, he learns that the investigation of Mayor Yin has i n t e n s i f i e d . While he i s taking a walk, his perception of his surroundings appropriately r e f l e c t s the more inimical aspects of Nature. He notices that \"the mountain wind was blowing and the night a i r was as cold as ice water\" and that \"a half moon hung over the mountains; the sombre, cloud-covered peaks looked l i k e 15 crouching beasts waiting for the chance to pounce. The t a c t i l e and v i s u a l aspects of t h i s image, contained in the combination of blowing wind , icy cold a i r and a half moon over the mountains creates a sense of foreboding. This sense 28 of foreboding adds to the scene's function as a portent of doom. The image of the mountains as \"crouching beasts waiting for the chance to pounce\" symbolizes the equally h o s t i l e p o l i t i c a l forces in Mayor Yin's environment. The \"crouching beasts\" represent the Red Guards who are l y i n g in wait for their prey, Mayor Yin. \"Ren Xiulan\" is another story that amplifies the theme of loss through the e x p l i c i t event of death. Loss of l i f e in this story as in \"Mayor Yin\" documents the irony and t r a g i c outcome of \"class struggles\" which later became a \"memory of terror 16 touched with absurdity\". This story, based on a real 17 incident involves the g r i s l y death of Ren Xiulan. The story, set in the summer of 1971 at the Hydraulic Engineering College in Nanjing is told by a narrator-participant, Chen Laoshi. She, along with two other women teachers have been assigned to look after those children at the College whose parents have been sent to May Seventh Cadre schools to undergo reform through labour. The plot consists of Chen Laoshi and her charges searching for Ren Xiulan, a Party Committee Secretary at the college, who has escaped from her detention quarters. A Party veteran, Ren had been accused of leading a May Sixteenth counterrevolutionary group that had been responsible for extreme l e f t i s t excesses at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and had been locked up in a \"study c l a s s \" for the l a s t year. The narrative l i n e spans one week in which Chen Laoshi and her charges search the h i l l s i d e for Ren without success u n t i l several days later they find her 29 black, bloated body in a cesspool. The narrator becomes v i o l e n t l y i l l , f a ints and is sick for a week. Unlike \"Mayor Yin\" where a sense of loss as well as sympathy for the protagonist is c u l t i v a t e d by i r o n i c contrast between the emotionally detached narrator and the events he describes, loss in \"Ren Xiulan\" is revealed more simply through a r e l i a b l e f i rst-person narrative. The narrator in \"Ren Xiulan\" has several functions. F i r s t , as narrator-participant, she provides authenticity to the incident she recounts. Since Chen does not distance the reader from th i s narrator by revealing her moral shortcomings, her r e l i a b i l i t y is never questioned. Second, as empathetic guide in the narrative, she d i r e c t s our positive response to Ren Xiulan. Third, because her psyche is delivered for blatant inspection, we experience v i c a r i o u s l y the psychological impact of Ren Xiulan's death. The narrator's natural s e n s i t i v i t y and admiration for Ren Xiulan ensures our sympathetic response to Ren Xiulan's fate. When the narrator recounts that she had \"looked at the short, 18 stocky figure with increased admiration\" or remembers that the l a s t time she saw her during a May Sixteenth Confession meeting she had walked in, \"calm, her head held high, her l i p s curled s l i g h t l y in the semblance of a smile as her eyes slowly 19 swept the h a l l with an unfaltering gaze\" we are provided with a p o s i t i v e impression of Ren Xiulan. Our l e v e l of concern for Ren Xiulan is increased by the narrator's observation that she now appeared \"much older; her face, no 30 longer round was wrinkled, and her hair was considerably 20 grayer. She was also much thinner...\". The t h i r d function of the narrator i s that she ensures an immediate response as well as maximum ef f e c t as we tr a v e l with her in her psychological reaction to the discovery of Ren Xiu-lan's corpse. Shock and horror is conveyed in her emotional response: \"I lay in bed not wanting to eat or drink, and every time I closed my eyes a black mass would f l o a t into my 21 mind and I would become nauseated.\" That the event has l e f t a deep psychological impression on the narrator i s revealed in her comments: \"...I rea l i z e d that my reaction was not a physical one. A strong emotional chain was wrapped around my 22 heart, and I would never in my l i f e be able to unlock i t \" and \"Her death has been l i k e an iron weight in my heart, 23 sinking ever deeper\". Thus, by d e l i v e r i n g the narrator's psychological state for examination, thematic e f f e c t i s maximized through the horror, shock and pain the narrator feels in her reaction to Ren Xiulan's suicide. In addition to developing the theme of loss through a first - p e r s o n narrative, Chen also increases a sense of loss through s i t u a t i o n a l irony. The ending consists of a reversal of events in which the \"May Sixteenth elements\" are freed and declared innocent of a l l charges, while t h e i r accusers are imprisoned and detained in \"study classes\" as suspected Lin Biao supporters. The narrator's thoughts reveal the irony of the s i t u a t i o n : \"The wheel of class struggle r o l l e d on, and very soon May Sixteenth became a h i s t o r i c a l note in Nanking, a 31 memory of terror touched with absurdity. No one mentioned the death of Ren Xiulan any more, her name appearing only on the h i s t o r i c a l record of struggles at the Hydraulic Engineering 24 College. But for me i t is d i f f e r e n t . . . . \" The ir o n i c ending heightens the sense of loss and f u t i l i t y in the story by implying that in p o l i t i c a l movements the oppressors could just as e a s i l y become the oppressed. In \"Residency Check\", there is no d i s t i n c t i o n between private and public concerns. This p o l i t i c a l l y claustrophobic environment re s u l t s in the individual's loss of dig n i t y and privacy. The story of Peng Yulian, an a t t r a c t i v e middle-aged woman suspected of sexual indiscretions while her husband i s away at a May Seventh farm i s told by a fir s t - p e r s o n narrator, Mei Laoshi. She recounts the d e t a i l s of her acquaintance with Peng Yulian and the e f f o r t s undertaken by the neighborhood committee to obtain evidence of Peng Yulian's adultery. Under the guise of a residency check the committee women plan to enter Peng Yulian's apartment and arrest the c u l p r i t s . The narrator's sympathy for Peng Yulian, the anti-heroine performs the same function as the narrator in \"Ren Xiulan\" of guiding the reader's response to the protagonist. In contrast to the view held by other women in the dormitory that Peng Yulian is a \"siren\", a \"shameless hussy\" and \"a piece of trash\" the narrator's s l i g h t l y admiring assessment of her i s revealed in statements such as: \" I t takes a l o t of nerve to 25 wear such bright colours, I thought\" or \"She had a joyous 32 look on her face, and she was composed, as usual. Her black, shiny eyes, even her dark skin, which was accentuated by her snowy white teeth, were a t t r a c t i v e . . . . she didn't look a l l 26 puffy l i k e everyone else, but rather delicate and l i v e l y . . . \" Even when the narrator i s upset by the prospect of another residency check and by her insomnia over the Peng Yulian a f f a i r she remains f a i r l y positive in her assessment of Peng Yulian. This Is shown in her comment: \"I grew more and more wakeful. That damned Peng YulianI After a l l that tossing about in bed I couldn't keep from cursing her. Everyone in the neighborhood had to l i e awake nights because she got herself into trouble I But then I thought of how she had been in Imminent danger of being disgraced in front of everyone, 27 and I ended up by being glad for her\". The narrator's favourable opinion of Peng Yulian suggests that not only does she admire Peng Yulian's daring, but she also envies her for her defiant acts of individualism. The narrator's sympathetic view of Peng Yulian s a t i r i z e s the neighborhood committee's p o l i t i c a l ruse which covers t h e i r true concern — the sexual mores of Peng Yulian. The contrast between the neighborhood committee's actions and the narrator's opinion of Peng Yulian also underscores the issue of loss of privacy. In the three stories which follow — \"Jing Jing's Birthday\", \"Night Duty\" and \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" — we see the emergence of Chen's prototypical d i s i l l u s i o n e d i n t e l l e c t u a l . The i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonist in these s t o r i e s i s a repatriate 33 who has gone to China expecting to contribute to the building of. a s o c i a l i s t state. In each case, the protagonist Is unable to pa r t i c i p a t e ln this process because of p o l i t i c a l oppression. The i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s reaction to t h i s i s o l a t i o n i s not only disappointment but a f e e l i n g of alienation and a sense of l o s s . The importance of t h i s theme ln Chen's f i c t i o n i s revealed by i t s frequent recurrence in her short s t o r i e s , and by i t s dominance in her novel, Repatr iates. The i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s sense of loss arises because of the discrepancy between his ideals and r e a l i t y and from his acute awareness of his diminished role in society. As Pai Hsien-yung states, what i s most painful to the i n t e l l e c t u a l in China i s that \"his knowledge cannot be used, his talent is not f u l l y u t i l i z e d , and he has no means of att a i n i n g his ideal of 28 national construction or zealous s o c i a l reform.\" Consequently, a loss of these ideals brings about a d i s i n t e g r a t i o n of meaning in his l i f e . As Marris states, loss disrupts our a b i l i t y to find meaning in experience, that i s , \"...loss is usually threatening: the victims recognize that unless they learn to understand the s i t u a t i o n and cope with i t , they w i l l be helpless to secure a tolerable future. The d i s o r i e n t a t i o n of purpose Is therefore a source of profound 29 anxiety as well as desolation\". For Chen's protagonists, th e i r sense of loss leads to the \"disorientation of purpose\" that Marris describes. The f r u s t r a t i o n and disappointment of Wen Laoshl and her husband ln \"Jlng Jing's Birthday\" i s compounded by the implications of their son's innocent 34 utterances. L i u Xiangdong In \"Night Duty\" experiences increasing disillusionment as he comes face to face with glaring inconsistencies between his ideals and r e a l i t y . Geng Er in \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" undergoes a si m i l a r process of disillusionment, but where Li u suffers from a loss of purpose and ideals, Geng Er's loss is linked to his f a i l e d romantic re l a t i o n s h i p s . A l l of these protagonists exist as displaced i n t e l l e c t u a l s who can only observe from the s i d e l i n e s since they do not have any re a l status or authority in society. The lack of a defined s o c i a l role combined with attacks on the i n t e l l i g e n t s i a relegates them to the caste of p o l i t i c a l outsiders. The primary focus in \"Jing Jing's Birthday\" is on the anxiety and concern of the narrator, Wen Laoshi for the family's p o l i t i c a l safety after her four year old son has uttered the \"reactionary\" slogan of \"Chairman Mao i s a rotten egg\". But the underlying tone of disappointment and d i s t r e s s i m p l i c i t l y points to a c r i s i s involving a loss of hope for the future experienced by the narrator and her husband. This loss of hope is linked not only to their future status but also to t h e i r son's, whose utterance i f reported to the authorities could forever brand him as a \"counter-revolutionary\". There are two aspects to the theme of loss. One aspect concerns the implication that Wen Laoshi and her husband have already experienced s i g n i f i c a n t loss although the nature of that loss is not e x p l i c i t l y s p e c i f i e d . The Implication that they have experienced personal and emotional setbacks i s 35 revealed in the narrator's comment about her husband: \"After t r a v e l l i n g thousands of miles to come back to China, he had 30 met with so much personal f r u s t r a t i o n \" . The extent of their disappointment since their return i s revealed also in her statement that her husband's \"only hope (emphasis mine) was that his son, born and raised under the red f l a g , would grow up as an accepted member of the eight hundred m i l l i o n 31 people..\" But now that \"thi s humble hope was already in 32 danger of being dashed\", she wonders, \"How could my husband 33 bear such a blow?\" The second aspect of loss concerns the uncertainty of t h e i r hope for a tolerable future for their four year old son. The fact that even t h i s hope of a secure and \"peaceful l i f e 34 without the burden of any previous ideology\" is threatened heightens the poignancy of th e i r fate. The f r u s t r a t i o n experienced by Wen Laoshi and her husband as a res u l t of loss i s symbolic of the deprivations experienced by Chen's other i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists. Although the nature of the loss sustained by the protagonists in t h i s story is unspecified, loss is portrayed more overtly ln \"Night Duty\" and \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" . Another reason for the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s f r u s t r a t i o n l i e s in the loss of status upon his return to China. His label as a 35 \"ninth rotten one\" separates him from the mainstream of Chinese society. The i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s consciousness of his \"stigma\" i s portrayed in Wen Laoshi whose frustrations r e s u l t from the Insinuation that because she is from abroad, she i s 36 lacking in p a t r i o t i c fervour and love for Chairman Mao. Her emotional state is e f f e c t i v e l y dramatized by r e p e t i t i o n of the phrase \"..not love Chairman Mao\" in the fi r s t - p e r s o n narrative: \"Not love Chairman Mao? How could I begin to t e l l her I To s t a r t with, my husband had not wanted our c h i l d to be born in a foreign country, so we had rushed back to China so 36 he could be born here \" or \"Before he could even say \"Mama' he was crying out 'Maol Maol' How could anyone say that 37 he didn't love Chairman Mao?\" as well as \"How could anyone say that we did not love Chairman Mao? Why, in order to follow him we had abandoned our families and had come to 38 China, where we had neither friends nor r e l a t i v e s . \" Chen's repetitious use of Chairman Mao's name in association with the theme of loss of hope i s an i m p l i c i t c r i t i c i s m that he i s to blame for the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s misfortunes. This is reinforced by a development in plot where i t i s implied that the stress of the incident causes the narrator to give b i r t h prematurely to her second son. Chen's story, \"Night Duty\" (Zhi ye) deals with the psychology of an i n t e l l e c t u a l who experiences painful loss due to his p o l i t i c a l environment. Loss in t h i s story concentrates on the protagonist, Liu Xiangdong and his sense of betrayal--of both his ideals and his purpose. As a r e s u l t of his increasing awareness of his loss and the degree to which he has changed, he feels confused, helpless, dejected and alienated. This story which is the precursor for Chen's novel, Repatriates i s primarily an encapsulation of the 37 i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s i n i t i a l awareness of loss and the subsequent confusion and g r i e f he experiences. Liu also grieves due to other losses that a r i s e as a r e s u l t of his loss of ideals. These losses include his sense of purpose, his perceived role in society and his i d e n t i t y . Unlike \"Jing Jing's Birthday\" where presentation of theme is revealed through Wen Laoshi's narration primarily of scene, \"Night Duty\" lays bare L i u Xiangdong's psychology through third-person narrative that d e t a i l s his mental process. Liu's state of mind and emotions are also emphasized by symbolic Nature imagery as well as s i t u a t i o n a l irony. Nature images involving desolate scenes dramatize Liu's feelings of confusion, loneliness, dejection and a l i e n a t i o n which a r i s e from his loss of ideals. S i t u a t i o n a l irony d i r e c t s attention to some of the causes for Liu's disappointment. When the story begins, Liu Xiangdong, a mathematics teacher at a college in Nanjing has been undergoing \"reeducation\" at a May Seventh farm. His previous three months involving farm labour and Anti-Lin Biao campaigns and study sessions have just ended and he i s scheduled to be transferred back to his college. On his l a s t night he volunteers for the task of night watch. While he and his f r i e n d , Lao Fu are t a l k i n g , they hear the cook's dog barking and decide to investigate. The denouement consists of Liu's discovery that the t h i e f who has stolen from their kitchen is none other than the c y n i c a l , young peasant he met e a r l i e r in the c a f e t e r i a . Perhaps, in sympathy or from the shock of his discovery, he 38 does not report the peasant but states that he only saw a \"black s i l h o u e t t e \" . The story's documentation of Liu's disenchantment begins with his disappointing discovery that other teachers at the May Seventh school discuss p o l i t i c a l ideology only for the sake of discussion and that \"what they said and what they 39 thought in their hearts was not the same thing\". Whenever he is engaged in group discussions, he i s swept away by \"the 40 ideal of a Utopian world\" and the \"future of Communism\", but the others are not only ignorant of the concept, they f a l l asleep or they use \"questions in order to pour out th e i r own 41 f r u s t r a t ions\". Another troubling r e a l i t y that contributes to Liu's gradual and cumulative disillusionment l i e s in the si t u a t i o n of his colleague, Lao Fu. Lao Fu had been a talented lecturer before the Cultural Revolution but during a p u r i f i c a t i o n campaign he was charged and j a i l e d for being a suspected member of a Nationalist organization despite the lack of evidence. Lao Fu was subsequently sent to the May Seventh farm where he has been performing labour and in his spare time, making kerosene stoves. The pathos of Lao Fu's fate and the inherent waste of human potential is implied in his response to Liu's question whether he considers his tasks a waste of his ta l e n t s : \"..as for waste, you talk as though 42 there are only a few things being wasted\". Another disturbing r e a l i t y concerns the cyni c a l and resentful peasant Liu meets in the c a f e t e r i a , who i s c l e a r l y the an t i t h e s i s of 39 the model peasant as described by Mao Zedong. This fact i s i r o n i c a l l y underscored by the s tory ' s ending when the t h i e f in t h e i r kitchen turns out to be the same peasant. In a d d i t i o n , L i u is disheartened by his discovery of the psychological changes within himself . When he f i r s t arr ived on the farm, he had been moved to tears by his col leagues' testimony of the i r successful \"re-education\" but now he cannot br ing himself to be l i k e the others: \"fervent, eloquent, and 43 s inging pra i ses , just l i k e performers in a f ine play\". L i u 44 also feels that he is \"getting old before his time\" and asks himself \"How long was i t s ince he and some close f r i ends , a l l determined i d e a l i s t s , had stood facing the i cy c l i f f s of the Grand Tetons and rec i t ed Chairman Mao's poem \"Snow\"? Loudly and c l e a r l y they had sung the words, %For men of ta lent the 45 time is now'\". In reminiscence, he r e c a l l s that when he was in the United States , \"what supported him then was not only h e a r t f e l t patr io t i sm but a lso a beaut i fu l i d e a l , for which he stayed up nights to study the works of Lenin and Mao 46 Tse-tung\" and that when he returned to China in 1973 \"he had 47 been f i l l e d with an intense f ight ing s p i r i t \" . But, now he 48 wonders \"where th i s proud, brave s p i r i t had disappeared to\". L i u ' s anguish ar i se s not only from his awareness of the degree to which his persona l i ty has changed, but a l so from questions he poses to himself to which he has no answers. When he speculates on how many people r e a l l y bel ieved in the theories of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong, \"l ike so many other 49 questions, t h i s one had no answer\". Or when he asks himself 40 what t h e f u t u r e o f C h i n e s e c u l t u r e i s i f Mao Zedong i s the o n l y one who i s a l l o w e d t o r e a d and c o l l e c t b o o k s , \"a whole s t r i n g o f o t h e r q u e s t i o n s crowded h i s m i n d , u n t i l h i s head 50 f e l t l i k e b u r s t i n g , y e t h i s h e a r t f e l t u n u s u a l l y empty\" . These d i f f i c u l t q u e s t i o n s a r e compounded by L i u ' s c o n c e r n s abou t h i s purpose and r o l e i n s o c i e t y . I n L i u ' s case h i s \" e a r n e s t d e t e r m i n a t i o n t o d e d i c a t e h i s e n e r g i e s t o the 51 s o c i a l i s t f a t h e r l a n d \" has not p roduced the d e s i r e d r e s u l t s . A l t h o u g h he d i d no t mind the i d e a o f t e a c h i n g f i r s t - y e a r ma thema t i c s a f t e r h i s c o m p l e t i o n o f l a b o u r a t t h e May Seven th f a r m , he i s d i s a p p o i n t e d t h a t a l l he w i l l be t e a c h i n g i s \" d e c i m a l p o i n t s and a d d i t i o n \" . S i n c e h i s o r i g i n a l pu rpose i n r e t u r n i n g t o C h i n a has been i n v a l i d a t e d by h i s m a r g i n a l r o l e i n C h i n e s e s o c i e t y , he i s f a ced w i t h t h e q u e s t i o n : \"wha t , a f t e r a l l , was the b e s t p o s s i b l e way f o r o v e r s e a s s t u d e n t s t o 52 make a c o n t r i b u t i o n t o t h e i r h o m e l a n d \" . L i u ' s d i s t r e s s , t h e r e f o r e i s l i n k e d n o t o n l y t o h i s l o s s o f f a i t h i n h i s i d e a l s , bu t a l s o t o h i s f e e l i n g of b e i n g b e r e f t o f p u r p o s e . I f L i u ' s s e l f i d e n t i t y i s a f u n c t i o n of h i s r o l e i n s o c i e t y , t h e n i n e v i t a b l y t h a t i d e n t i t y w i l l be c a s t I n t o doub t i f h i s r o l e i s j u d g e d t o be unwor thy or i n v a l i d . L i u ' s c r i s i s o f i d e n t i t y i s a p p a r e n t when he a s k s h i m s e l f whether he i s \" g u i l t y o f b e i n g an immature l e f t i s t who l a c k e d d i s p a s s i o n , one whose s t r o n g p a t r i o t i c e m o t i o n s had 53 d e t e r i o r a t e d i n t o r e g r e t and d i s i l l u s i o n m e n t . A c c o r d i n g t o M a r r i s , when an i n d i v i d u a l has s e t h i s h e a r t 54 on a r o l e i n l i f e , d i s a p p o i n t m e n t a r o u s e s g r i e f . F o r Liu> 41 his loss of ideals, purpose and id e n t i t y results in a response of g r i e f . He experiences feelings of al i e n a t i o n , helplessness and dejection. Marris states that in order for the individual to resolve his g r i e f , he must be able to extricate whatever was meaningful In the past r e l a t i o n s h i p and Incorporate i t with the future. There is no evidence that L iu is able to resolve the internal c o n f l i c t which arises from the loss of his ideals as well as from the in v a l i d a t i o n of his purpose by China's p o l i t i c a l p o l i c y towards i n t e l l e c t u a l s during the Cultural Revolution. Chen dramatizes Liu's emotional state by using Nature imagery to symbolize his s o l i t a r y and depressed state of mind. His disillusionment and feelings of despondency and loneliness are depicted In descriptions of his natural surroundings. The plains which are described as \"vast\", \"all-encompassing\", \" f l a t \" and \"spreading out endlessly\" make him \" f e e l i n f i n i t e l y small, to the point of helplessness\". Liu's feelings of insignificance are suggested in the vi s u a l image of him looking up at the \"vast and l o f t y \" sky from which \"a lone star 55 seemed to be staring mutely down at him\". This p r o f i l e captures Liu's psychological state when his feelings of despondency and loss seem to be at their most overwhelming. The story's i r o n i c ending suitably underscores Liu's complete disillusionment. Just as the thi e f in the commune's kitchen has turned out to be the d i r e c t opposite of the model peasant as heralded by Mao Zedong, s i m i l a r l y , actual conditions in Chinese society have not borne out Liu's 42 expectations. The story ends without any resolution of Liu's l o s s . \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" (Geng Er zal Beijing) l i k e \"Night Duty\" Is also a psychological p o r t r a i t of an i n t e l l e c t u a l who suffers pa i n f u l and profound l o s s . While Liu Xiangdong in \"Night Duty\" suffers great disappointment and g r i e f due to his loss of ideals and purpose, Geng Er's gr i e f arises primarily from losing the women he loves. But his dejection also r e s u l t s from experiencing a setback in his career which, coupled with his loss of love leads ultimately to an erosion of his f a i t h and a loss of ideals. Geng Er's gr i e f i s e f f e c t i v e l y portrayed by Chen's use of time-shift sequences, a narrative that i s sympathetic to Geng Er and s i t u a t i o n a l irony. The story's plot revolves around Geng Er, a forty-nine year old unmarried i n t e l l e c t u a l who returned to China from the United States in 1964. The narrative focuses on his two f a i l e d romantic rela t i o n s h i p s . His f i r s t romance with a woman named Xiao Qing shortly a f t e r he returned to China, i s ended i n d i r e c t l y due to the onset of the Cultural Revolution. Xiao Qing loved and wanted to marry him but pressure from her superiors at work and her peers f i n a l l y forced her to give him up. P o l i t i c a l circumstances are again the reason for the f a i l u r e of his subsequent romance with a woman named Xiao J i n . In his f i r s t r e l a t i o n s h i p , due to the opinion prevalent during the Cultural Revolution that i n t e l l e c t u a l s from the United 56 States were \"secret agents or i n c o r r i g i b l e c a p i t a l i s t s \" , 43 Geng Er had been deemed unsuitable for Xiao Qing, a model worker with a proletarian family background. In his second re l a t i o n s h i p , there is an Ironic switch because Geng Er i s considered by his superiors at work to be too good for Xiao J i n , who i s suspect because of her landlord family background and because of the uncertain p o l i t i c a l status of her former husband who had committed suicide during a p o l i t i c a l campaign. Geng Er breaks off his rel a t i o n s h i p with Xiao J i n knowing that the i r plan to marry i s hopeless because his work unit w i l l not grant them permission. Two years l a t e r he i s invited to his colleague's home to spend New Year's eve where he encounters Xiao J i n again. He discovers that he s t i l l feels strongly for her and resolves to marry her. However, before he has a chance to raise the topic with her, she informs him that she has married an e l d e r l y cadre who needed someone to look aft e r him. In t h i s p o r t r a i t of a beaten and discouraged i n d i v i d u a l , Geng Er's dejection begins with his loss of Xiao Qing. His loss is a l l the more devastating because his love for her had possessed a l l the in t e n s i t y of f i r s t love; the \"tenderness and a f f e c t i o n in the depths of his heart were l i k e the lava in an underground volcano, which seethed and flowed in search of the 57 opportunity to explode to the surface\". In addition, he compares her, \"this g i r l of New China, ardent and yet solemn, 58 gentle and yet strong\" who was \"so frank and open, so 59 a r t l e s s — a simple, sincere and completely natural g i r l \" with the g i r l s he had known in the United States and decides that \"there hadn't been a single g i r l who could match (her) 44 60 innocence, s i n c e r i t y , and d e s i r a b i l i t y . \" Geng Er is completely enthralled by Xiao Qing who \"exerted a mysterious force upon him, drawing him to her l i k e a magnet and holding 61 t i g h t l y against her.\" Xiao Qing not only holds the key to Geng Er's future happiness, but she also represents to him, security, permanence and a sense of roots, acceptance in society and the prospect of a family. In his relationship with Xiao Qing, 62 \"the greatest happiness he had ever known\" he \"not only was indescribably happy but he also f e l t as secure as Mount 63 Taishan\". That his f e e l i n g of \"coming home\" i s associated with his love for Xiao Qing becomes evident when he re-evaluates the time he spent in the United States as \"those austere times, those years of deprivation that f i n a l l y led to 64 a better l i f e \" . Por after meeting Xiao Qing, he no longer \" f e l t rootless and alone, as he had during a l l his years as a 65 d r i f t e r in a strange land\". To Geng Er, the prospect of marriage to Xiao Qing also represents acceptance by China's \"new society\". He considers himself a \"petty bourgeois 66 i n t e l l e c t u a l \" , and believes that \"a union with Xiao Qing who came from a long l i n e of workers, would mean not only a complete turnaround in his thoughts but also that his children 67 would then i n h e r i t the noble blood of the working c l a s s . . . \" . But more fundamentally, Geng Er's expectations regarding his future with Xiao Qing points to his need to belong and to have a family. What makes Geng Er's loss of Xiao Qing so poignant i s that by losing her he also loses those things that she represented to him: happiness, security, permanence and acceptance. Loss of Xiao Qing also i n d i r e c t l y i n i t i a t e s a loss of ideals. Since she had symbolized a l l the happiness and fulfilment Geng Er had hoped to find in China's new society, his hurt and g r i e f stem as much from losing her as i t does from the loss of his idealism. When he returned to China \" f i l l e d with hope for the future, he was confident that he 68 could find his niche in the new society\". His meeting with Xiao Qing f i t s into t h i s pattern of happy expectation. However, just as Xiao Qing who is a symbol of his potential happiness has rejected him, s i m i l a r l y the \"new\" China has also rejected him. Geng Er's loss of Xiao Qing may be considered a l l e g o r i c a l for the repatriated i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s r e l a t i o n s h i p with China. Despite Geng Er's e f f o r t s to find love, acceptance and happiness, he f a i l s . S i m i l a r l y , the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s quest for a meaningful role in Chinese society comes to naught. Geng Er's loss of love and setbacks in career further dishearten him. The frui t l e s s n e s s of the time that he has spent in China is implied ln his thought that when he returned \"he was single and alone\" and now ten years l a t e r , \"he was 69 s t i l l single and alone\". The waste of his time and potential i s further implied when a un i v e r s i t y professor from abroad says to him that he has probably published many papers, but Geng Er i s unable to inform him that he's had to change his f i e l d , and that \"the program at the i n s t i t u t e was 46 70 constantly s h i f t i n g to s u i t the needs of the revolution\". The depth of Geng Er's dejection is revealed i n d i r e c t l y through another l o s s - - t h i s time of his f a i t h . After the Lin Biao a f f a i r i s publicized Geng Er \"was unclear as to just who was being v i c t i m i z e d — h e himself, Lin Biao or possibly Chairman Mao. He f e l t that he had been deprived of his l a s t remaining shred of f a i t h , and he was as helpless as a blind 71 man who has l o s t his cane\". As a r e s u l t of the above losses, Geng Er suffers immense g r i e f . The psychological and physical symptoms of Geng Er's g r i e f i s revealed in his constant reminiscences of Xiao Qing, his yearning for the past and his i n a b i l i t y to forget her. It becomes clear that his sorrow from losing her i s s t i l l unabated since whenever he thinks of her \"his heart would throb\". That his g r i e f i s unresolved i s also revealed later when he meets Xiao J i n and t r i e s to forget Xiao Qing but r e a l i z e d \"that his e f f o r t s were in vain, and he could only hope that the shadow of his past would in no way a f f e c t his 72 marriage\" to Xiao J i n . The narrative provides d e t a i l s of the gradual decline in Geng Er's psychological state due to the f a i l u r e of his r e l a t i o n s h i p with Xiao J i n . He \" t i r e d e a s i l y . . . suffered from insomnia, his mind often wandered..and even his memory began 73 to f a i l him\". Geng Er's symptoms appear to f i t Marris' description of the signs of g r i e f which not only Include 74 physical but also psychological symptoms. In addition, Geng Er's feelings of helplessness and the evidence of his 47 displaced anger point to the overwhelming trauma he experiences, of loss of a c r u c i a l r e l a t i o n s h i p not just once but twice. After he breaks off with Xiao J i n , he does not give in to his expression of g r i e f . The fact that he represses his emotions i s revealed i n : \"Anger f i l l e d his 75 heart, but he remained s i l e n t . . \" . or \"He could only congratulate himself that he was old enough to keep his emotions under cont r o l . Rather than explode in rage, he 76 a c t u a l l y nodded his head very p o l i t e l y in agreement. Geng Er believes that he has been \"seriously wronged\" and yearns to 77 \"f i n d a place where he could give vent to his rage\" but 78 unfortunately \"no such place existed\". According to Marris, inh i b i t e d g r i e f leads to physical disorders or neurotic 79 conditions. In Geng Er's case, he i s cognizant of his changed state although he does not seem aware of i t s origins nor i t s cause for \"He knew without consulting a physician that he was s u f f e r i n g from a t y p i c a l case of neurotic 80 depression..\". The extent of loss and i t s effects on Geng Er i s e f f e c t i v e l y portrayed by Chen's use of flashback sequences, nature imagery and irony. The story's structure consists of two d i s t i n c t sections of current time in Geng Er's consciousness. Within these two d i v i s i o n s , f i v e separate reminisces by Geng Er into his past are interspersed. Although Chen's use of flashbacks tends to create a \"looseness 81 in tempo and rhythym\" , time-shift sequences enhances the i n t e n s i t y and immediacy of Geng Er's emotions. Geng Er's 48 psychological states of past and present is delivered for contrast and comparison. The flashback sequences emphasizes the unresolved state of Geng Er's g r i e f as well as i t s in t e n s i t y which has not abated over time. Thematic presentation i s enhanced by the third-person narrative which creates a dramatically v i v i d protagonist. The narrative i s structured from Geng Er's vantage point and as such heightens the significance of his experience of loss by imbuing complexity, depth and range of contrast to his mental state that would otherwise be limited by a first-person viewpoint. Geng Er's pathetic s i t u a t i o n is reinforced by the dramatization of his emotions and state of mind through Nature imagery. Contrast i s provided between images at the beginning which symbolize the depth of his fe e l i n g for Xiao Qing and images at the end to show the extent of Geng Er's demorialization. When he f a l l s in love with Xiao Qing, his love i s likened to \"a stream in winter that i s deluged by a night of spring ra i n , suddenly so swollen i t threatened to 82 overflow i t s banks\". His love for her i s also compared to the \"lava in an underground volcano, which seethed and flowed 83 in search of the opportunity to explode to the surface\". But after he experiences loss imagery correspondingly changes to more grim and s t e r i l e scenes. This is r e f l e c t e d in the metaphorical description of wine which \"suddenly seemed to freeze into beads of ice, cold and hard, beating r e l e n t l e s s l s y 84 against his heart\". The \"cold\" \"hard\" \" i c y \" beads that beat 49 \" r e l e n t l e s s l y against his heart\" symbolize the ste r i l e n e s s of his emotional state. He has repressed his emotions including g r i e f to the point that he cannot f e e l anything except for pain whenever he reminisces about the past. The image at the end of the story combined with i t s inherent s i t u a t i o n a l irony captures the pathos of Geng Er's s i t u a t i o n . The closing scene in t h i s story is similar to Lu Xun's \"New Year's S a c r i f i c e \" . There is the same note of ir o n i c contrast between the festive sound of exploding firecrackers in the background and the actual mood of the protagonist in the foreground. In \"New Year's S a c r i f i c e \" the narrator's doubts and feelings of misgiving over Xiang Lin Sao when he wakes up are sharply contrasted with the sound of firecrackers. S i m i l a r l y , Geng Er's feelings of despondency are juxtaposed with the festive sound of fire c r a c k e r s . But unlike Lu Xun's narrator who is able to shake off his sadness, Geng Er is l e f t with crushing loneliness: \"Geng Er stared d u l l y at the deserted street where she had walked. The sudden sound of firecrackers intermingled with the shouts of children brought him back to r e a l i t y . F i l l e d with loneliness, he turned his bicycle around. It was already very late and since he was very t i r e d , he could only push his bicycle slowly towards home.\" 85 Both \"Night Duty\" and \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" end with the protagonists being unable to resolve their loss of ideals, of purpose, of f a i t h and of id e n t i t y . Their fate r e f l e c t s what Pai Hslen-yung describes about the i n t e l l e c t u a l s In Chen's writings. They a l l suffer from a \"kind of s p i r i t u a l 50 86 dismemberment, a form of s p i r i t u a l death\". In Mayor Yin Chen appears content to merely document the effects of loss in her protagonists' l i v e s . In the cases of Mayor Yin and Ren Xiulan who lose their l i v e s due to p o l i t i c a l oppression, t h e i r loss i s devastatingly f i n a l . For protagonists such as Wen Laoshi, Liu Xiangdong and Geng Er, their loss i s s p i r i t u a l and psychological and occurs as a resul t of irr e c o n c i 1 i a b l e discrepancies between the i r expectations and r e a l i t y . They had gone to China as i d e a l i s t s seeking to contribute to s o c i a l i s t construction, but due to the base status assigned to them during the Cultural Revolution, and the denial of their perceived role in Chinese society, they experience loss and g r i e f . They also are unable to resolve t h e i r experience of loss. This is s i g n i f i c a n t because as symbols of Chen's own experience in China their lack of resolution mirrors Chen's own lack of reformulated purpose and meaning at t h i s stage of her writing. 51 Notes to Chapter Two 1 Chen Jo-hsi, Shenqhuo Suibi (Jottings on L i f e ) , (Taipei: Shi bao wen hua chu ban s h i , 1981), p.163. 2 Chen Jo-hsi, Preface to Lao Ren (Old Man), (Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1978), p. 2. 3 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), (Taipei: Yuan j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 171. 4 i b i d . , p. 181. 5 I have referred to th i s character as Xiao Zhang as he appears in the o r i g i n a l . He has been renamed Hsiao Wu in the translated version: \"Mayor Yin\" in The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stor ies from the Great Proletar ian Cultural Revolution. 6 Leo Lee states in \"Dissent L i t e r a t u r e \" (p.64) that one \"can almost be certa i n of Lu Hsun's i n s p i r a t i o n in Chen Jo-hsi 's recent work when one r e c a l l s that, aside from Mao's writings, Lu Hsun's works provided the only l i t e r a r y fare available in China during the Cultural Revolution\". Both \"Mayor Yin\" and \"Zhu Fu\" contain a passive narrator who stumbles upon the protagonist's story when he makes a journey to a small town, both contain an \"envelopment\", i . e . , a story within a story, and both contain the same operative mechanism of s t r u c t u r a l irony. 7 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, trans. by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 18. (Hereafter, The Execution of Mayor Yin). 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., p. 21. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 19. 12 Pai Hsien-yung, \"Wutuobang de Zhuixun yu Huanmie\" (Utopia: Quest and Disillusionment), Yin Xianzhanq, (Taipei: Yuan j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 37. 13 Yip Wai-lim, \"Chen Jo-hsi de lucheng\" (The Journey of Chen Jo-hsi), Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), (Taipei: Yuan jing chu ban s h i , 1976), p.18. 14 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 33. 52 15 Ibid., p. 29. 16 Ibi d . , p. 136. 17 Pai Hsien-yung, p. 33. 18 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 128. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., pp. 128-129. 21 Ibid., p. 135. 22 i b i d . 23 Ibid., p. 136. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., p. 92. 26 Ibi d . , p. 103 27 Ibid., p. 111. 28 Pai Hsien-yung, p. 38. 29 Peter Marris, Loss and Change (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), p. 149. 30 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 51. 31 i b i d . 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Lowell Dittmer and Chen Jo-hsi, Ethics and Rhetor i c of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of C a l i f o r n i a , 1981), p. 59. 36 Chen Jo-hsl, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 47. 37 Ibid., p. 48. 38 Ibid. 39 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), p. 39. 53 40 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 74. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibi d . , p. 83. 43 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), p. 38. 44 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 77. 45 Ib i d . , p. 78. 46 Ib i d . , p. 73. 47 Ibid., p. 78. 48 Ibid. 49 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), p. 39. 50 Ibid., p. 52. 51 Ibid., p. 36. 52 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 79. 53 Ibid., p. 78. 54 Marris, p. 108. 55 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 79. 56 I b i d . , p. 158. 57 I b i d . , p. 164. 58 Ib i d . , p. 168. 59 Ib i d . , p. 162. 60 Ibid., p. 166. 61 Ib i d . , p. 162. 62 Ibi d . , p. 168. 63 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), p. 109. 64 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 166 65 I b i d . , p. 163. 66 Ib i d . , p. 168. 54 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 t b i d . , p. 155. 70 I b i d . , p. 174. 71 I b i d . , p. 188. 72 I b i d . , p. 183. 73 t b i d . , p. 188. 74 Peter Marris states in Loss and Change (p.26) that t y p i c a l signs of g r i e f are: physical symptoms such as insomnia, restlessness, physical d i s t r e s s , worse health, exhuastion, lack of appetite, headaches, chest and digestive disorders and numbness. Psychological symptoms of g r i e f include an I n a b i l i t y to surrender the past as manifested in the brooding over memories, an i n a b i l i t y to comprehend the loss, feelings of unreality, withdrawal into apathy and h o s t i l i t y against others, fate or oneself. 75 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 186. 76 I b i d . , p. 187. 77 I b i d . , p. 188. 78 I b i d . 79 Marris, p. 27. 80 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 188. 81 Leo Ou-fan Lee, \"Dissent Literature from the Cultural Revolution\", Chinese Li t e r a t u r e : Essays, A r t i c l e s , Reviews, vol.1, Jan.1979, p. 65. 82 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhang (Mayor Yin), p. 112. 83 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 164. 84 I b i d . , p. 159. 85 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), p. 152. 86 Pai Hsien-yung, p. 39. 55 Chapter Three Reformulation of Purpose The s t o r i e s in Old Man r e f l e c t Chen's new motive for writing. Unlike the stories in Mayor Yin which she wrote in order to d i s p e l her loneliness as well as in remembrance of her friends on the mainland, Chen states that she chose to write Old Man because she could \"never forget the kind of dread which is created by 'Tuchu zhengzhi' (giving prominence to p o l i t i c s ) and which has seeped into the very bloodstream of 1 the people\". Chen's new purpose in writing becomes increasingly more e x p l i c i t in Old Man. She s t i l l feels the need to speak about the causes for the diminished q u a l i t y of l i f e in Chinese society. That diminution is symbolized by loss. Loss, which in these st o r i e s appears as a deprivation of personal freedom and i n d i v i d u a l i t y , of love and happiness, of hope, ideals and f a i t h , and in two extreme cases, of l i f e i s attributed to p o l i t i c a l oppression and the dominance of p o l i t i c s in every aspect of l i f e . In addition to exposing s o c i a l and p o l i t i c a l i l l s engendered by China's system, Chen feels compelled to voice protest d i r e c t l y through her f i c t i o n . Chen's need to protest in Old Man r e f l e c t s a new stage in her grieving process. In Mayor Yin Chen's documentation of loss is symbolic of her i n i t i a l impulse of grie f which was to express her own loss and to validate the past. As Marris states, i f g r i e f is to be succe s s f u l l y resolved, a sense of purpose must be detached from the o r i g i n a l r e l a t i o n s h i p which incorporated i t and 56 gradually reintegrated with new circumstances. The s t o r i e s in Old Man are a res u l t of the detachment of Chen's sense of purpose from the past and i t s subsequent reintegration with her present. Her former purpose had been to serve the Chinese people by going to China. That purpose i s r e h a b i l i t a t e d and incorporated with Chen's new status as p o l i t i c a l emigre'. Her new sense of mission Involves \"serving the people\" through her writing. Thus, her work i s intended both to expose the i n j u s t i c e s perpetrated by China's p o l i t i c a l system, as well as to protest on behalf of the victims who cannot. Chen i s no longer content to just document loss, she is compelled to protest. Evidence of Chen's renewed purpose is manifested in some of her protagonists' symbolic attempts at resistance. Chen's protagonists in Old Man can be distinguished from her characters in Mayor Yin by their budding acts of resistance. Characters such as Geng Er, Liu Xiangdong and the various narrators in Mayor Yin are immobilized by their loss and subsequent feelings of f r u s t r a t i o n , despair, hopelessness and a l i e n a t i o n . They are c l e a r l y unhappy about th e i r situations but are unable to a l t e r their predicament or exercise control over their fate. But protagonists such as Lao Ren, Ding Yun, Ai Fen, Hong Shifu and the narrator in \"Nikesen de jizhe tuan\" (Nixon's Press Corps) in Old Man exhibit signs of pos i t i v e , a l b e i t limited action. Lao Ren, the e l d e r l y cadre in \"Old Man\" refuses to supply a written account of the Tiananmen Incident that would implicate others; Ding Yun and Ai Fen 57 choose th e i r spouses based on pragmatic issues; Hong Shifu and L i Mei take their own l i v e s rather than become separated; and Xin Laoshi d e f i a n t l y refuses to remove her clothes drying pole. The actions of each of these characters are symbolic because they represent a conscious e f f o r t on the part of the individual to regain control of his own fate within the tight constraints of his p o l i t i c a l environment. Yet despite the protagonists* symbolic e f f o r t s at resistance, the s t o r i e s tend to conclude on a f u t i l e note without any clear resolution of thei r problem. That problem is l i f e under a t o t a l i t a r i a n regime. The influence of Chen's renewed purpose on her writing is not only r e f l e c t e d in the portrayal of her protagonists but i s also manifested in her l i t e r a r y technique. Her d r i v i n g need to protest on behalf of China's \"victims\" leads to a decline in the q u a l i t y of her work. Chen has stated herself that China's p o l i t i c a l developments in 1976 so disheartened her 2 that she was \" b o i l i n g with rage\" and consequently \"even her 3 written works were affected\".. As her message becomes more e x p l i c i t , c r e d i b i l i t y of characters, cohesiveness of plot, internal logic and s t r u c t u r a l i n t e g r i t y are diminished. Pedantic passages in a story's narrative reveal Chen's indulgence in intrusive e d i t o r i a l , r hetoric, and verbal irony. Unlike the Mayor Yin st o r i e s where Chen's thematic presentation is limited to one s p e c i f i c issue or incident, in Old Man she d i r e c t s attention to a myriad of themes in order to voice her disapproval. The lack of commonality between 58 some of these themes ln a pa r t i c u l a r story suggests that Chen chose her themes at random and then methodically worked them into a formulated framework to support her argument that l i f e is intolerable in a repressive p o l i t i c a l climate. The inclusion of secondary themes that seem only remotely related to plot increases the impression that plot l i n e is c a r e f u l l y orchestrated. The resu l t is that attention is deflected from the main issue, thereby lessening the story's impact. The s t o r i e s in Old Man share some s i m i l a r i t i e s with those in Mayor Yin in their s t r u c t u r a l s i m p l i c i t y , limited number of characters, and a single c o n t r o l l i n g consciousness in the narrative. But while Mayor Yin is characterized by r e s t r a i n t in tone and s t y l e , Old Man is marked by a more fo r c e f u l and intrusive authorial voice. In Mayor Yin the tr a g i c fate of the protagonist is heightened by i t s in d i r e c t portrayal through s t r u c t u r a l and s i t u a t i o n a l irony. In Old Man Chen r e l i e s more on manipulation of plot and character rather than s t r u c t u r a l irony to emphasize tragedy. Manipulation of events in plot in \"Unit 13\" results in melodrama, while e d i t o r i a l statements uttered by protagonists such as Hong Shifu and Lao Ren undermine their c r e d i b i l i t y . Chen's use of the f i r s t -person narrator in the Old Man st o r i e s is also less e f f e c t i v e than in Mayor Yin primarily because the narrator i s relegated to the role of uninvolved observer. In terms of portraying her protagonist's reaction to loss in the s t o r i e s in Old Man Chen continues to u t i l i z e nature imagery to represent his emotional landscape. She s t i l l uses 59 natural elements such as the sea, sky and wind to symbolize inner states of mind. But she also resorts to d i r e c t descriptive narrative in revealing a character's emotions. Descriptive narrative performs the task of conveying the character's inner state but i t lacks the a r t i s t r y of metaphorical representation that Chen used so s k i l l f u l l y in the Mayor Yin s t o r i e s . \"Shisan Hao Danyuan\" (Unit 13) exemplifies Chen's e f f o r t s to show the pernicious and destructive effects on China during a time when p o l i t i c s became society's central, i f not sole concern. These catastrophic results are protrayed d i r e c t l y through the deaths by suicide of the story's protagonists, Lao Song and his wife. As a vehicle of c r i t i c i s m , \"Unit 13\" is the least pedantic of Chen's st o r i e s in t h i s anthology, although i t contains inherent weaknesses in terms of an ambiguous narrator, weak characterization, and manipulation of plot. \"Unit 13\" revolves around the misfortunes of Lao Song and his wife, Song Ayi who endure one calamity after another during the Cultural Revolution. Lao Song is investigated and detained because of an alleged landlord background. Shortly after he is released from detention, he and his wife lose t h e i r only c h i l d , a four year old daughter. Their daughter, Lian Lian Is a c c i d e n t a l l y k i l l e d when her playmate, Yao Wu throws a washboard at her. Hu Ayi, the pregnant mother of YdO Wu offers her unborn c h i l d as compensation but later changes her mind. The Songs undergo further psychological decline 60 u n t i l one day Song Ayi is seen to have taken Yao Wu home with her. Hu Ayi goes to the Song apartment to demand the return of her son, but in the evening dusk, she acc i d e n t a l l y f a l l s and suffers a miscarriage. The neighbours then r a l l y around 4 her and accuse the Song couple of desiring \"class vengeance\". They send for the security section of their factory as well as the police to arrest the Song couple in their apartment. When the security men and police a r r i v e , however, they discover after breaking down the door, that Lao Song and his wife have hung themselves. The theme of loss in \"Unit 13\" as in \"Mayor Yin\" and \"Ren Xiulan\" is portrayed d i r e c t l y through Lao Song and his wife's su i c i d e . Loss of l i f e i s intended to symbolize the harmful ef f e c t s of people's tendency during the Cultural Revolution to interpret any event or phenomenon in a p o l i t i c a l context. But the development of t h i s theme is weakened by an unreliable narrator. \"Unit 13\" is recounted by a female narrator whose moral flaws makes her role ambiguous. Unlike \"Ren Xiulan\" and \"Mayor Yin\", where the fir s t - p e r s o n narrative i n d i r e c t l y enhances a sense of tragedy and loss, the ambiguity of the narrator's role in \"Unit 13\" undermines the story's effectiveness. In \"Ren Xiulan\" the narrator guides our response to the death of Ren Xiulan through her psychological reactions to the events she describes. In \"Mayor Yin\" the ir o n i c contrast provided by the narrator's emotional detachment from the events he describes further emphasizes the pathos of the main protagonist. But in \"Unit 13\" Chen f a i l s 61 to use the narrator in either of these ways in order to amplify theme. The narrator's ambivalence is revealed by the lack of change in her perception of the Song couple through the course of the story. Her biased assessment is c l e a r l y evident in her description of the Songs and in the value judgements she makes about them. Of Song Ayi, the narrator states: \" A l l along, she did not talk about her past, I suppose that i t could not have been glorious. She avoided any mention of her family background, without doubt i t probably belonged to one of the 5 * f i v e black elements'\". A degree of censure, s u p e r i o r i t y and smugness on the part of the narrator is evident when she remarks that since \"the factory did not have an obligation to assign a job to Song Ayi, she happily hid at home leading an 6 idle l i f e \" , or that \"The Song couple were c e r t a i n l y strange, 7 the longer they l i v e d the more thin-skinned they became\", and that \"class struggle had been going on for twenty years, 8 everyone had tempered himself by becoming thick-skinned\". The narrator's narrow-mindedness and shallow understanding of the Song couple is a l l e v i a t e d somewhat by minor displays of sympathy yet she never completely demonstrates wholehearted empathy for them. Comments about Lao Song such as \"If he dared to conceal and f a l s i f y his background, was there 9 anything that he wouldn't dare do\", or \"...on his face was an i n g r a t i a t i n g smile, the kind of smile that concealed and 10 obscured his past\" betray the narrator's s l i g h t l y scornful attitude towards the Songs. Chen c l e a r l y reveals the 62 narrator's moral shortcomings yet the other variable required for s t r u c t u r a l irony to function properly in t h i s story i s missing. That missing element consists of a means for the reader to a r r i v e at an assessment of Lao Song and his wife independent of the narrator's biased descriptions. We suspect that the narrator exaggerates the \"eccentric\" behaviour of Lao Song and his wife, but we have no means of v e r i f i c a t i o n . Instead we are l e f t wondering whether the Songs are as peculiar as the narrator perceives them to be. In \"Mayor Yin\" s t r u c t u r a l irony serves to heighten the sense of tragedy and loss that i s associated with Mayor Yin's death because the juxtaposition of the narrator's moral shortcomings with the true character of Mayor Yin serves to lower the narrator's worth while r a i s i n g Mayor Yin's worth. In \"Unit 13\" t h i s device of irony does not work due to missing information. If the narrator's presence is intended to distance the reader from the Songs so that attention i s directed more towards events in plot than on characterization, then the f i r s t - p e r s o n narrative is marginally e f f e c t i v e . If the narrator's role is confined s o l e l y to a s a t i r i c a l representation of her contemporaries and their moral values she is under-utilized. She could have been assigned the same role as the narrator in \"Mayor Yin\" whereby his moral shortcomings through s t r u c t u r a l irony acts as a f o i l to the central protagonist's t r a g i c fate. The narrator's ambivalence is also the basis for the problem of weak characterization. The portrayal of Lao Song 63 and his wife i s e n t i r e l y dependent on the narrator's observations but, due to her biases, they are prevented from becoming f u l l y rounded and vibrant protagonists whose suicides e l i c i t an automatic response of sympathy. This i s due to the unfavourable impression created of Song Ayi by the narrator's descriptions. She states that Song Ayi had \"a t a l l and skinny frame that resembled a branch of white poplar with i t s leaves 11 a l l f a l l e n o f f \" and that her face was \"long and f l a t ; her skin was so white that i t seemed blue and so thin that i t resembled the crescent moon appearing just after the sun had set. Her thin l i p s were as colourless as i f they had received an e l e c t r i c shock; a smile was r a r e l y on her face as i f there 12 were many things weighing on her mind\". Weak characterization also undermines Chen's intent to show how p o l i t i c a l campaigns destroyed people's w i l l to l i v e . One deduces that Lao Song and his wife commit suicide because of p o l i t i c a l and s o c i a l oppression, but one cannot be absolutely c e r t a i n . That uncertainty i s increased by the narrator's views which unintentionally suggest that any abnormal behaviour of Lao Song and his wife may be inherent and not induced by their environment. Another weakness in the story's structure is lack of cohesion in plot. Disjointedness arises because Chen feels compelled to describe the p o l i t i c a l background of the major characters and a l l i t s implications. In order to emphasize the point that people were p o l i t i c a l l y hounded to death during the Cultural Revolution, Chen resorts to manipulation of plot. 64 Lian Lian, the daughter of Lao Song who has been l a b e l l e d a counterrevolutionary is k i l l e d when Yao Wu (the son of a p o l i t i c a l l y correct family - his mother i s from a \"three generation peasant family\", while his father is a Party member) throws a washboard at her. Coincidentally, the unborn c h i l d of Yao Wu's mother, Hu Ayi is l o s t through miscarriage. F i n a l l y , the denouement consists of the suicide of Lao Song and his wife. Due to the manipulated l i n k i n g of deaths, plot seems not only sensationalized but melodramatic. In order to present a convincing argument for the \"dread\" that is created by \"giving prominence to p o l i t i c s \" a host of minor themes are interwoven in the p l o t . Chen's narrator makes a l l u s i v e associations between the number of the Song couple's apartment and Western superstition concerning the number thir t e e n . In addition, Chen attempts to create a mood of foreboding and horror by using a narrator who begins the story by s t a t i n g that she is not a superstitious person, but whenever she sees the vermilion coloured door of the apartment across from hers and the white cement ground below, her throat c o n s t r i c t s . The narrator's recounting of the gossip that c i r c u l a t e s about Lao Song's marriage reveals the vestiges of t r a d i t i o n a l superstitious b e l i e f about marrying widows. Lao Song's neighbours believe that misfortune i s bound to b e f a l l him a f t e r he marries Song Ayi because \" i f i t was not a case of mourning for the husband i t would be a case of grieving for 13 And indeed their predictions are proven correct 65 by the events In the plot with the death of Lao Song's only daughter and later Lao Song's suicide. The irony is that Song Ayi also suffers an unfortunate end. By showing that traces of t r a d i t i o n a l s u p e r s i t i t i o n s t i l l e x i s t , Chen s a t i r i z e s China's \"new society\" for i t s f a i l u r e to a t t a i n a t r u l y new s o c i a l order. However, the story's elements of superstition and the melodramatic events of plot belie i t s intent to se r i o u s l y convey the horror of deaths which as the narrator 14 states \"during that period were a common occurrence\". The redeeming element in \"Unit 13\" l i e s in i t s documentation of the psychological trauma sustained by Lao Song and his wife. After Lao Song i s investigated in a \" P u r i f i c a t i o n \" campaign and is detained in a study cl a s s , his mental and physical decline is noted by the narrator who observes that \"after he had been exposed as being one of the five black elements, his triangular shaped face was so drawn that i t was even more pointed than an o i l funnel. No longer did he smile i n g r a t i a t i n g l y ; his expression resembled the gloominess of the sky that precedes the a r r i v a l of wind and r a i n . Now more reti c e n t than ever, whenever he saw anyone from afar, he would keep his head low and would be unwilling 15 to even utter a greeting\". She also remarks that Lao Song had become s l i g h t l y hunchbacked \"as i f the label of \"landlord' had oppressed him to the extent that he couldn't even 16 straighten his waist\". Lao Song's deterioration which is compounded by g r i e f after his daughter's death is symbolized by the change In his physical appearance: \"..the f l e s h of his 66 yellowish face was so slack that It hung as i f he had become 17 so thin that only a layer of skin was l e f t \" . The effects of bereavement on Song Ayi are also noted by the narrator who recounts that Song Ayi stayed indoors a l l day and went out only at night when no one was around. Not s u r p r i s i n g l y , the behaviour of Song Ayi which Is already perceived by the narrator to be a l i t t l e odd appears even more disturbed, for Song Ayi would suddenly \"...appear in the doorway, dressed completely in black, l i k e an ominous s p i r i t ; her eyes would be riveted to the spot where Lian Lian was struck down, her body unmoving, as i f she were absorbedly waiting for 18 something..\". Chen's portrayal of the theme of loss of l i f e as an indictment of China's t o t a l i t a r i a n regime also appears in \"Di Dao\" (Tunnel). \"Tunnel\" which i s a tragic love story that is set in Nanjing spans a period of one year from the summer of 1971 to 1972. The narrative i s structured from the consciousness of Hong Shifu, a sixty-four year old r e t i r e d 19 worker whose family possesses a t o t a l l y \"red\" and therefore \"good c l a s s \" background. He is considered \"red\" by virtue of the fact that he has been a worker a l l his l i f e and his eldest and youngest sons are a Party member and an Army o f f i c e r respectively. The plot consists of Hong Shifu meeting L i Mei when they are both recruited for the task of digging tunnels in response to Mao's d i r e c t i v e to dig tunnels as a i r - r a i d shelters in the event of a Soviet bomb attack. Hong Shifu f a l l s in love with L i Mei, a middle-aged divorcee 67 and wants to marry her. But Hong Shlfu's family opposes the marriage suspecting that L i Mei is being opportunistic and wishes to counter her status as a divorced woman by marrying someone with an unimpeachable background. Hong Shifu is so ashamed by his i n a b i l i t y to act against his children's wishes that he stops seeing L i Mei and gives up a l l hope of happiness. During that winter he is severely depressed and undergoes a psychological decline. Several months l a t e r , he a c c i d e n t a l l y bumps into her and begins seeing her again s e c r e t l y . They are unable to express their sexual love for each other because \"without a l e t t e r of introduction from the unit where he worked there was no chance of getting a (hotel) 20 room\". So during a heat wave in July, they decide to v i s i t a public park. Because of the lack of privacy in the park, they venture into a tunnel. The story ends on a climactic note with Hong Shifu and L i Mei entering the tunnel: \"They walked on hand in hand, leaning upon each other. The tunnel echoed th e i r footsteps but they did not hear i t : they could only hear the voice of th e i r own hearts responding to each other. At six o'clock sharp a keeper of the park came and locked the gate. It was opened one day a week to a i r out the tunnel and keep i t dry. Another week would pass before i t was 21 to be opened again.\" Loss in \"Tunnel\" is presented d i r e c t l y through i t s thematic focus on death. But thematic development i s i n d i r e c t l y enhanced by nature imagery to convey Hong Shifu's psychological decline. Chen's e f f e c t i v e use of seasonal 68 changes as well as nature images to symbolize Hong Shifu's emotional landscape heightens the pathos of Hong Shifu's fate. After Hong Shifu's son opposes his plan to remarry, his subsequent s p i r i t u a l and psychological decline i s appropriately symbolized by the winter that \"was unusually 22 cold\". The bleakness of Hong Shifu's emotional landscape is represented in his lack of a c t i v i t y . He curls up \" i n his room 23 l i k e a frozen snake, numb to a l l feelings\". His feelings of dejection and loneliness are symbolized by the desolateness of his physical s e t t i n g : \" l y i n g awake in the middle of the night, he couldn't help the cold loneliness weighing heavily on him. When i t snowed he would stand there, hands in his sleeves, and gaze dumbly at the blank whiteness of the world 24 on the other side of the windowpane\". Hong Shifu resumes his r e l a t i o n s h i p with L i Mei during the Spring F e s t i v a l (Lunar New Year). But instead of following Nature's natural progression from rejuvenation of l i f e to bountiful harvest, Hong Shifu's r e l a t i o n s h i p with L i Mei ends in tragedy. The fact that i t is summer when they die underscores the pathos of thei r fate because th e i r actions d i r e c t l y undercut the metaphor of summer as a symbol of f r u i t i o n and f u l f i l m e n t . The narrative consciousness structured from Hong Shifu's vantage point creates a vigorous and f u l l y rounded hero. Our sympathy towards his lonely state and thwarted plan of marriage is heightened by his characterization as an extremely l i k a b l e protagonist. Hong Shifu is described as a conscientious father, who had chosen to remain single after 6 9 his wife's death rather than r i s k his children's happiness with a stepmother. Hong Shifu is so well l i k e d and admired in his neighbourhood that he i s commended for being a \"model old 25 man\". This positive image of Hong Shifu arouses an even greater sense of shock and sympathy for his t r a g i c end. Despite the compelling theme of t h i s story, there are some minor flaws such as e d i t o r i a l commentary and i n s u f f i c i e n t portent in plot that betray Chen's overwhelming need to express her c r i t i c a l opinion at the expense of a r t i s t i c i n t e g r i t y . The o r i g i n a l version of t h i s story ended with a gatekeeper discovering two corpses inside the tunnel and two l i n e s of writing scrawled in blood on a cement wall that said: 26 \"We love each other, we are not suicides\". Chen explained that her reason for ending the story that way was due to the Communists' condemnation of suicide as an act of \"rejection of the people\" and their fear of the act's consequences. But upon the advice of Pai Hsien-yung she revised the \"superfluous\" ending; the altered version is the one that appears in Old Man. The ending in the o r i g i n a l version l i k e the events in \"Unit 13\" betray Chen's occasional leaning towards melodrama. In \"Unit 13\" the plot consists of a series of seemingly contrived deaths which are intended to symbolize the results of p o l i t i c a l harassment and oppression. S i m i l a r l y , the melodramatic ending in the o r i g i n a l version of \"Tunnel\" belabors Chen's point that under China's p o l i t i c a l system individuals are never free; even in death. Hong Shifu's c r e d i b i l i t y as a f u l l y rounded hero is 70 lessened by his sometimes i n c i s i v e and \" i n t r u s i v e \" commentary. His d i d a c t i c comments only emphasizes the fact that he i s being manipulated so that Chen can voice her own sentiments through him, for example: \"What he objected to was the toadyism of the rank and f i l e of the Communist Party such as his son. It seemed so unjust to him that they should be ever-ready to accommodate themselves to Party p o l i t i c s while showing no sympathy whatever for an unfortunate and helpless woman l i k e L i Mei...when he thought more about the matter, he realized that t h i s double standard was t y p i c a l of the Communists. Both Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi divorced their wives and remarried. Yet they would not permit the people to allude to i t under the penalty of being charged with slandering the leaders and engaging in counter-revolutionary a c t i v i t y . They did not put much stock in t h e i r own marriage and divorce laws.\" 27 Other evidence of authorial intrusion occurs when Hong Shifu is described as accepting his son's explanation on f a i t h because he i s unable to follow his son's rationale for the exemption of unive r s i t y professors from mandatory retirement while ordinary workers l i k e himself are forced to r e t i r e . But in the next sentence, Chen intrudes with verbal irony: \"was he not a professor at the unive r s i t y and a f u l l y accredited 28 member of the Communist Party? How could he be wrong?\" A d i d a c t i c comment such as \"when the c i t y government realized 29 that i t was impossible to r e a l i z e Mao Zedong's pipe dream\" (emphasis mine) further reveals Chen's heavyhanded manipulation. Once again, in Chen's preoccupation with try i n g to symbolize the shortcomings of China's system through loss, which in th i s story as in \"Ren Xiulan\" and \"Unit 13\" involves 71 a death, s t r u c t u r a l i n t e g r i t y i s made subordinate to the message. In Chen's haste to c r i t i c i z e China's system she also dwells on several minor themes in \"Tunnel\". These themes include the h y p o c r i t i c a l behaviour of the leadership, inconsistencies in retirement policy, Mao\"s in e f f e c t u a l d i r e c t i v e s such as \"Dig Tunnels and Store Grain\", as well as the f a i l u r e of China's \"new society\" which was was \" s t i l l very tradition-bound; and gave no thought to the loneliness of the 30 e l d e r l y and their needs\". The inclusion of these themes creates a hodgepodge effect in thematic cohesiveness. 31 \"Da Qing Yu\" (Big Black Fish) is another example of Chen's emphasis on voicing her message at the expense of her c r a f t . The plot consists of the attempts of Kuai Shifu, an ironworker at the Nanjing Dockyard to buy a f i s h to stimulate the appetite of his i l l wife. After enduring scornful looks from the stallkeeper for his deliberation over the cost and amount of f i s h he wishes to buy, he f i n a l l y pays for i t and is about to leave. But just as he is getting on his b i c y l e , he i s stopped by a cadre who asks him to take the f i s h back because i t isn ' t for sale. The cadre explains that i f everything were sold there would be nothing to show the foreign v i s i t o r s . Kuai Shifu looks on h e l p l e s s l y as \"the f i s h , i t s huge t a i l swinging back and forth, disappeared into 32 the distance\". Chen's focus on thi s single incident emphasizes the shortage of material goods and how ordinary people l i k e Kuai Shifu are affected by the Chinese regime's desire to \"put on a 72 good front\". Kuai Shifu's disappointment at losing his f i s h is moving but he is not a compelling character. Chen's l o y a l t y to and sympathy for Kuai Shifu i s revealed in the third-person narrative which is structured from his viewpoint. Yet even so, characterization i s made subordinate to events. Consequently, Kuai Shifu is a r e l a t i v e l y f l a t character In comparison to Hong Shifu and Qi Laotou in \"Spring i s Late\". The next set of s t o r i e s in t h i s anthology can be distinguished from Chen's previous ones by her protagonists' reactions to loss and th e i r budding attempts of resistance. Qi Laotou's daughter Xiao Qun in \"Chun Chi\" (Spring i s Late) and the narrator in \"Nikesen de jizhe tuan\" (Nixon's Press Corps) respond d e f i a n t l y to the coercive pressure of their neighborhood committees. Ai Fen in \"Nu you Ai Fen\" (My Friend Ai Fen) and Ding Yun in \"Ding Yun\" attempt to recover control of th e i r fates by choosing a spouse based on p r a c t i c a l issues. Lao Ren in \"Lao Ren\" (Old Man) courageously refuses to submit a written account of everything he observed during the Tiananmen Incident. These protagonists are c l e a r l y d i f f e r e n t from Chen's former characters in Mayor Yin who experience loss as a r e s u l t of p o l i t i c a l and s o c i a l oppression but are unable to r e s i s t . In \"Chun Chi\" (Spring is Late) loss of i n d i v i d u a l i t y , personal freedom and vibrancy of l i f e are depicted to show the inroads of p o l i t i c a l ideology on d a i l y l i f e as well as the inherent irony of l i f e under a t o t a l i t a r i a n regime. \"Spring i s Late\" i s s t y l i s t i c a l l y the most successful in Old Man. The 73 story i s e f f e c t i v e because i t s plot i s evenly paced, events are consistent with the story's internal l o g i c , and the tone throughout i s dispassionate and unmarred by authorial intrusion. Nature imagery used to symbolize Qi Laotou's i n t e r i o r landscape also adds to the story's impact. \"Spring is Late\", set in Nanjing during early spring, revolves around a seventy-year old protagonist, Qi Laotou who s t i l l possesses a capacity for l i f e (as symbolized by his sexual i n t e r e s t ) . Qi Laotou is a r e t i r e d worker and widower. He l i v e s with his daughter and her family in a dormitory on the campus of Nanjing University. During an early morning shopping expedition, he impulsively propositions a woman by 33 saying \"Will you sleep with me?\". He is apprehended and turned over to the neighborhood committee to be p u b l i c l y c r i t i c i z e d . After the struggle session is over, he is released into his daughter's care while an investigation of his p o l i t i c a l background is carried out. Qi Laotou declines psychologically and phy s i c a l l y with the result that he takes to his bed and refuses to get up. The neighbourhood committee subsequently demands that Qi Laotou return to the countryside of his own v o l i t i o n , but the protests of his daughter e f f e c t i v e l y f o r e s t a l l that from occurring. After a few months the entire incident loses i t s importance. The story concludes i r o n i c a l l y with Qi Laotou's study class asking him to attend meetings. When a year after the incident has passed, the event i s completely forgotten with Qi Laotou becoming the \"most welcomed chatting companion in the group of e l d e r l y 74 34 grannies\". Loss in t h i s story, as in \"Tunnel\" i s attributed to the f a i l u r e of China's new society to accommodate the needs of the el d e r l y . Unlike \"Tunnel\" where there are inconsistencies in Hong Shifu's development, \"Spring is Late\" provides a credible and consistent p r o f i l e of a vigorous protagonist who suffers from a diminished role in society. Qi Laotou's feelings of ali e n a t i o n are due to the nature of his society, \"which aside from ^revolution' did not know he existed, where the joys and sorrows of the e l d e r l y were not in the least important, and where there was no place for him to even r e l u c t a n t l y express 35 36 his d i f f i c u l t i e s . \" Qi Laotou's \"undissipated loneliness\" 37 coupled with the \"nameless oppression\" that a f f e c t s him from l i v i n g on a univer s i t y campus makes his l i f e even d u l l e r . He rea l i z e s that his feelings of i s o l a t i o n have resulted from his s e n s i t i v i t y regarding his status as a \"country bumpkin\" and his suspicion that he is unwelcome in his study c l a s s . But even when he does attend study c l a s s , he finds that he has very l i t t l e in common with the e l d e r l y men and women in his class who \"seem l i f e l e s s , a l l appearing much older than their 38 real ages\" while the \"women, content with babysitting t h e i r grandchildren, prefer to spend the time with other women 39 chatting away the time, excluding the men\". The narrative which is e s s e n t i a l l y structured from Qi Laotou's perspective not only e f f e c t i v e l y reveals his sexual v i t a l i t y but also enhances our understanding of his impulsive action. Despite his age, \"he secretly, s t i l l l i k e d to look at 75 youthful women; he longed to exchange a few sentences with them and even hold their hand. Whenever he encountered a 40 woman with an enchanting posture, his legs would go numb.\" Qi Laotou's awareness of his longings and the need to repress them i s revealed in his thought that \"he knew he could not t e l l these thoughts to another person, but he had no way of 41 eradicating them\". The third-person narrative permits a deeper and more complex p r o f i l e of Qi Laotou's psyche than i f his personality had been f i l t e r e d through a fi r s t - p e r s o n narrator-observer. Chen's e f f e c t i v e portrayal of Qi Laotou's physical and s p i r i t u a l deterioration while he is under investigation i s enhanced by her use of nature to represent his inner state. At the beginning of the story, his buoyant s p i r i t s are conveyed by his feelings of r e v i t a l i z a t i o n when he breathes in the warm spring a i r : \" l i k e a long abandoned machine that i s 42 o i l e d , his joints began to limber up\". His v i t a l i t y i s conveyed through his thought that spring \"makes his step 43 l i g h t e r , and even his sense of smell is more se n s i t i v e \" . But halfway through the story, spring and other symbols of nature, such as the birds and trees which began as symbols of rejuvenation, change to indicators of contrast. After Qi Laotou's public denunciation, he goes into psychological withdrawal. His i s o l a t i o n is emphasized i n d i r e c t l y by the contrast between his state of mind and both the \"locust tree outside his window that is completely covered by tender green 44 leaves\" and the \"magpies on i t s branches making noise at 76 45 sunrise\". These images represent a world of brightness and a c t i v i t y that he dares not enter because of his feelings of g u i l t and sel f - r e c r i m i n a t i o n . His diminished self-respect in addition to the threat of being transferred to the countryside to undergo labour reform is accompanied by a physical decline. He feels weaker and \"more and more fatigued as he watches the 46 sunlight getting brighter each day.\" He moves around less and less in his room while the periods of time that he s i t s s taring into space lengthen, u n t i l one day he decides he simply cannot get out of bed. When he does get out of bed a month or two l a t e r , the severity of his mental ordeal i s symbolized by his hair having turned completely white. Chen's s a t i r i c portrayal of the neighborhood committee's 47 insistence that Qi Laotou's action i s \"premeditated\" and 48 that i t i s \"a brazen act of r e s i s t i n g a Central d i r e c t i v e \" demonstrates the extent to which p o l i t i c s dominated and i n f i l t r a t e d even mundane aspects of l i f e . The committee's commitment to finding a link between Qi Laotou's \"crime\" and his p o l i t i c a l background points to the p o l i t i c a l l y oversensitized environment that characterized the Cultural Revolution. The fact that every event or phenomenon was interpreted in a p o l i t i c a l context i s further emphasized by a neighbour's comment that the woman Qi Laotou propositioned i s no ordinary woman but a woman who works for the family of an army commander. Since members of the army were a \"class above 49 everyone else, they couldn't just l e t anyone bump into her\". The absurdity and uncertainty of l i f e in a Communist 77 system i s reinforced by s i t u a t i o n a l irony in the story's conclusion. The unexpected r e h a b i l i t a t i o n of Qi Laotou points to the inherent irony of l i f e under a system where as Ou Yangzi points out, an \"individual's fate is completely 50 unpredictable\". The s i g n i f i c a n c e of \"Spring i s Late\" l i e s in the symbolic act of resistance by Qi Laotou's daughter, Xiao Qun. When the neighbourhood committee orders Qi Laotou to v o l u n t a r i l y go to the countryside, Xiao Qun uses Maoist rhetoric in defense of her father as well as in protest. Xiao Qun's resistance i s indi c a t i v e of a new stage in Chen's own grieving process. Just as Chen has begun to reformulate her sense of purpose and i d e n t i f i e d herself with the need to speak out for China's people, correspondingly her protagonists exhibit signs of res istance. In \"Nikesen de j i zhe tuan\" (Nixon's Press Corps), loss of i n d i v i d u a l i t y and personal freedom are the thematic issues. These losses are attributed to s o c i a l and p o l i t i c a l pressure on the individual to conform to the group, even at the most personal l e v e l of deciding to leave a clothes drying pole outside one's window. \"Nixon's Press Corps\" centers on the preparations taken by Xin Laoshi's school for the v i s i t of some of Nixon's reporters to Nanjing. One of the d i r e c t i v e s issued by the neighbourhood committee i s that a l l drying racks must be disassembled. Xin Laoshi refuses to take hers down and i s subsequently harassed and pressured by the head of the 78 committee who implies that she is unwilling to \" s a c r i f i c e for 51 the revolution\". Although Xin Laoshi's neighbours a l l dismantle t h e i r drying racks, she d e f i a n t l y leaves hers standing. The i r o n i c outcome of the foreigners' v i s i t i s that aside from two reporters who v i s i t e d a market, the rest of the press corps had gone d i r e c t l y to Hangzhou. Technically, the story's focus on a single event, i t s use of a f i r s t - p e r s o n narrator, and i r o n i c ending categorizes i t as another example of Chen's formulaic approach. However, the story's significance l i e s in i t s secondary themes of al i e n a t i o n and resistance. Xin Laoshi, l i k e L i u Xiangdong and Geng Er i s an \"overseas\" Chinese repatriate. Her f e e l i n g of exclusion from Chinese society is similar to Geng Er's sentiment that i n t e l l e c t u a l s had \" a l l become outcasts in the 52 new society\". But unlike Geng Er who does not a c t i v e l y r e s i s t p o l i t i c a l pressure, Xin Laoshi's resistance is revealed when she says, \"Since we're never trusted and we can't afford to protest, we can l e t an inanimate object l i k e our drying 53 rack stand up for us.\" Her unconciliatory stance i s further emphasized by her verbal confrontation with Gao Sao when she states emphatically that she w i l l not remove her drying rack. The portrayal of resistance, the indignant tone of the narrator's declarative statements in addition to e d i t o r i a l commentary such as \"No one ever p u b l i c l y questioned the contradictory statements or t h i s about-face in Communist 54 pol i c y \" demonstrate the effects of Chen's grieving process on her l i t e r a r y work. Chen's f i c t i o n becomes Increasingly 79 imbued with a purpose that supersedes her o r i g i n a l need to just document loss. Just as the drying rack is symbolic of Xin Laoshl's only means of protest, s i m i l a r l y , Chen's st o r i e s are vehicles for her dissent. The next two s t o r i e s , \"Nu you Ai Fen\" (My Friend Al Fen)\" and Ding Yun\" (Ding Yun) focuses on the major issue of loss of true love and happiness due to the protagonists' p o l i t i c a l environment. But these s t o r i e s also focus on secondary themes of loss of Idealism, of trust and f a i t h , of i n d i v i d u a l i t y and of control over one's fate. In \"My Friend Ai Fen\", the plot revolves around Ai Fen who is a doctor at a Beijing h o s p i t a l . The narrator who is an i n t e l l e c t u a l repatriate meets Ai Fen in 1967 when she gives b i r t h to her f i r s t c h i l d . As their friendship deepens, the narrator learns of Ai Fen's previous misfortunes in love and her current marital problems with her husband Xiao Fan. Ai Fen's misfortunes Involved losing her f i r s t boyfriend with whom she was deeply in love to a g i r l whose father is a high-ranking cadre. She i s b i t t e r l y hurt and d i s i l l u s i o n e d by the experience but later meets an a r t i s t named Xiao Fan and marries him. Their marital problems are exacerbated by their p o l i t i c a l environment. The p o s s i b i l i t y of being forced to accompany her husband in the event that he is sent to the countryside during the \"Rustication Movement\" (shangshan xiaxiang), combined with th e i r incompatibility leads Ai Fen to divorce him. Although she and Xiao Fan continue to see each other aft e r the divorce, she f a l l s in love with and marries 80 Hao Guang, an opera performer. The story ends on a concerned note when the narrator learns after she had l e f t China that \"model operas\" had f a l l e n alongside Jiang Qing's toppling and that Hao Guang had been r e c t i f i e d . The narrator cannot help 55 but \"fear for Hao Guang and worry even more about Ai Fen\". Loss in t h i s story emphasizes that personal matters such as love and marriage were inevitably affected by p o l i t i c a l Issues during the Cultural Revolution. Al Fen loses her 56 boyfriend because he i s concerned that with his \"bad c l a s s \" background he w i l l be sent to a remote province. He rejects Ai Fen for another g i r l who secures a position in Beijing for him. Ai Fen's subsequent marriage to Xiao Fan on the rebound results in martial discord. Their problems combined with the threat of being sent to the countryside undermine the success of their r e l a t i o n s h i p . Like Geng Er's f a i l e d romances, the f a i l u r e of AI Fen's relationships points to the harmful influence p o l i t i c s rendered on human relationships during the Cultural Revolution era. The poignancy of Al Fen's s i t u a t i o n is enhanced by the fact that she i s not \"keen on p o l i t i c a l 57 58 matters\" and wishes only to \"get along from day to day\". She chooses to marry her second husband, Hao Guang based on her love for him as well as what she thought was a p o l i t i c a l l y problem-free background. But i t turns out that he too, and i n d i r e c t l y she as well, are not free from the p o l i t i c a l net. The fate of Ai Fen is symbolic of her contemporaries who suffered s i m i l a r kinds of losses. In addition to portraying a loss of romantic fulfilment and happiness, the story also 81 focuses on losses involving ideals, trust and f a i t h and i n d i v i d u a l i l i t y . Both Ai Fen and Xiao Fan, her f i r s t husband experience b i t t e r disillusionment. Al Fen's loss of b e l i e f in love is expressed when she states, \"I used to believe in love and gave myself without reservations. I don't fe e l the same 59 way anymore\". While the source of Ai Fen's unhappiness springs from her f a i l e d relationships, Xiao Fan's \"resentful 60 cynicism\" i s linked to his discovery that \"the Revolution 61 had done nothing for him aside from denying his own worth\". As an a r t i s t , he has had to suppress his i n d i v i d u a l i t y and c r e a t i v i t y by painting propaganda posters. The cause for his discouragement is c l e a r l y attributed to the Cultural Revolution which \"had not only (broken his l i f e ' s routine, but 62 had also shattered his aspirations\". The resu l t is that \"except for drowning his sorrows in liquor, Xiao Fan did not 63 know how to a l l a y his sense of b i t t e r disappointment\". Chen's portrayal of Ai Fen, Xiao Fan and Hao Guang points to the uncertainty of l i f e in a t o t a l i t a r i a n regime. Ai Fen's statement that \"You may escape th i s time, but you won't the 64 next\" captures the general fe e l i n g of dread which as Chen states, \"had seeped into the very bloodstream of the 65 people\". The ir o n i c ending further reinforces the f u t i l i t y and pathos of Ai Fen's p o l i t i c a l caution. Her lament that \"we 66 just don't have any control over our fates!\" poignantly captures the individual's powerlessness to determine his own future. 82 The Issue of personal happiness and marriage reduced to i t s most pragmatic l e v e l because of p o l i t i c a l implications i s also the basis of Chen's story, \"Ding Yun\". The narrator, an educated youth sent to work on a farm in Hellongjiang due to the \"Rustication Movement\" recounts the story of her friend, Ding Yun. The plot involves the narrator paying a v i s i t to Ding Yun's parents' home during the Spring F e s t i v a l where she learns the d e t a i l s of her friend's recent marriage to the son of a high-ranking m i l i t a r y cadre. The narrator discovers that Ding Yun had taken the i n i t i a t i v e in sending photographs of herself to her father's doctor who was acting as matchmaker. When the other party had expressed interest in her she quickly returned from Heilongjiang on the pretext of a family emergency. The couple become engaged a week afte r t h e i r meeting and are married two months l a t e r . Due to Ding Yun's new status as a wife of an Army member, she is transferred from her commune in Heilongjiang to Shanghai to be with her husband. The narrator notices that due to Ding Yun's marriage, the l i v i n g standards of Ding Yun's family have improved remarkably with a new apartment and an abundance of superior q u a l i t y goods and foodstuffs that are unavailable to the average person. E s s e n t i a l l y , Chen's portrayal of the pragmatic attitude of Ding Yun towards love and marriage is a c r i t i c i s m of China's new society. Just as women in pre-Revolutionary China often married for f i n a n c i a l reasons, women l i k e Ding Yun under China's new s o c i a l order consider marriage partners in terms 83 of p o l i t i c a l influence and i n d i r e c t l y , economic security. The cyni c a l remark overheard by the narrator as she is walking home: \"These days, i t ' s best to have a father with influence, 67 but short of that a good s i s t e r w i l l do\" combined with her observation of the material prosperity experienced by Ding Yun's family is a revealing attack on inequities created by China's s o c i o - p o l i t i c a l order. Ding Yun is symbolic of those who are not only forced to deny their true selves in trying to r e t a i n a modicum of control of their own l i v e s , but who resort to using \"back-doors\" in order to achieve their aims. In addition to the story's thematic focus on marriage based on mutual benefit, the story also deals with the experience of loss, of both p o l i t i c a l innocence and youth. The disillusionment of Ding Yun and the narrator is symbolic of a similar loss of ideals and betrayal of f a i t h experienced by an entire generation of young i n t e l l e c t u a l s during the Cultural Revolution. The moving plight of their generation i s captured in Ding Yun's question to the narrator, \"...what crimes have we committed that we should be exiled here so far away from 68 home?\" This question underscores the irony of their banishment. They have been sent to the countryside not because they are g u i l t y of any crime but because they believed wholeheartedly in Mao Zedong and in his dictum that i t was \"correct to rebel\". A sense of their disillusionment and betrayal is conveyed in the narrator's comment that during the Cultural Revolution she and Ding Yun were \"rudely awakened to 69 the same harsh r e a l i t i e s \" Their feelings of dejection, 84 a l i e n a t i o n and bewilderment Is symbolised ln the narrator's description of Ding Yun's smile which was a smile that \"re f l e c t e d the f e e l i n g of helplessness of the young 70 i n t e l l e c t u a l s of our generation.\" Chen ensures our sympathetic response to Ding Yun in her choice of a first-person narrator who guides our reactions to the d e t a i l s she recounts about Ding Yun. The narrator's impartial attitude towards Ding Yun's marriage is sharply contrasted with her observation that other \" . . . g i r l s , being catty, laughed at the idea of a former Red Guard and active rebel ending up in a marriage arranged through matchmakers, though in truth there was hardly one who did not envy her for having married the son of a high-level cadre and thus 71 achieving instant x s a l v a t i o n \" ' . This contrast increases the narrator's r e l i a b i l i t y as guide and interpreter of events. The narrator's role as guide is also linked to thematic development by providing moral contrast to Ding Yun's chosen course of action. The fact that the narrator, who as a symbol of moral rectitude is s t i l l stranded in Heilongjiang points to the inherent irony in China's system. The i n t e l l e c t u a l who maintains his moral values and honor i r o n i c a l l y exists in a state of physical and s p i r i t u a l e x i l e . In terms of l i t e r a r y technique, \"My Friend Ai Fen\" and \"Ding Yun\" are f a i r l y s i m i l a r . They both u t i l i z e an uninvolved narrator whose reminiscences form the basis of the story, progress l i n e a r l y in plot development, and r e l y on descriptive narrative to convey a protagonist's emotional 85 state rather than nature imagery. The biggest flaw in \"Ding Yun\" according to Cheng Yung-hsiao is that the narrator's reminiscences are unconnected to her v i s i t and do not enhance 72 character development as in \"Old Man\". Cheng f a i l s to take into consideration that the narrator's reminisces about Ding Yun's s i t u a t i o n in Heilongjiang enhances the reader's understanding of Ding Yun's decision to marry for reasons other than love. Unlike Chen's other s t o r i e s in this anthology, these two stories are r e l a t i v e l y restrained in tone and s t y l e without any strident and intrusive e d i t o r i a l comments inserted into the text. However, the straightforward s t y l e that Chen employs in these two s t o r i e s without any twists in plot or any alternative viewpoint to the narrative consciousness does r e s u l t in what Cheng Yung-hsiao c a l l s \"reportage that 73 resembles a d a i l y accounting\". The s i m p l i s t i c structure of these two s t o r i e s again attests to the importance Chen places on a story's message than on l i t e r a r y technique. \"Lao Ren\" (Old Man) Is another example of the change in Chen's portrayal of her. protagonists from a more passive i n t e l l e c t u a l to one who attempts to exercise active control over his fate. Just as the narrator's r e f u s a l to remove her drying rack becomes a symbolic act of protest against p o l i t i c a l oppression in \"Nixon's Press Corps\", s i m i l a r l y the refusal of Lao Ren in \"Old Man\" to supply a written record of his a c t i v i t i e s on the day of the Tiananmen Incident becomes an active stance of dissent. These symbolic acts of protest mirror 86 Chen's newly r e h a b i l i t a t e d purpose in l i f e . Her sense of mission leads her to reveal and protest against the flaws in China's p o l i t i c a l system. The system causes her protagonist to suffer a loss of: ideals, hope of r e u n i f i c a t i o n , f a i t h in the Communist Party, and personal freedom. Chen's reformulated purpose as the endpoint in her grieving process also leads her to the vociferous expression of her views in her f i c t i o n . Consequently, \"Old Man\" is marred by di d a c t i c passages, and e d i t o r i a l commentary. As the longest story in the c o l l e c t i o n , i t is the least a r t i s t i c because It i s intended to be more of a d i a t r i b e than an expose of an individual t r a g i c a l l y caught in a r i g i d system. \"Old Man\" i s the clearest example of the degree to which 7 4 Chen's \" b o i l i n g rage\" pervades her f i c t i o n . The story i s a l i t e r a r y vessel moulded as a container for Chen's personal views and her reactions to the d i r e c t i o n Chinese p o l i t i c s was taking in 1976. The story's focal point is centered on the 75 event of the Tiananmen Incident of A p r i l 5, 1976. The reactions of Lao Ren to the Tiananmen Incident i s used by Chen to show her support for spontaneous p o l i t i c a l protest as well as to reveal the psychology of Lao Ren, a veteran Party cadre now in his seventies who has weathered one purge a f t e r another. The story's s i m p l i s t i c plot consists of Lao Ren being pressured by his neighbourhood committee to supply a written account of his a c t i v i t i e s and the a c t i v i t i e s of others in r e l a t i o n to the Tiananmen r i o t . Superimposed on this one event in plot are Lao Ren's reminiscences which reveal the 87 calamities that he has experienced since he l e f t his wife and daughter in Taiwan in the 1940's to join the revolution on the mainland. The s i m i l a r i t y \"Old Man\" shares with previous s t o r i e s such as \"Ding Yun\", \"My Friend Ai Fen\", \"Night Duty\", \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" and \"Jing Jing's Birthday\" is the theme of disillusionment and loss of f a i t h in the Communist Party. The e a r l i e s t i n d i c a t i o n of Lao Ren's moral dilemma occurs in his reminiscence about the transfer of his stepson to Inner Mongolia during the \"Rustication Movement\". He had f e l t that as a Party member \"he had to support t h i s \"Rustication Movement' in p r i n c i p l e and f u l l y recognize i t s great 76 s i g n i f i c a n c e \" . However, i t had been d i f f i c u l t for him to wholeheartedly endorse a measure that not only brought such g r i e f to his wife but also \"lacked an overa l l plan which in addition to corrupt bureaucrats, had resulted in widespread 77 complaints\". Lao Ren's loss of ideals and f a i t h in the Party is also revealed i n d i r e c t l y by his present discouragement over his neighbour's i n a b i l i t y to discern between truth and p o l i t i c a l dogma. In Lao Ren's eyes, his neighbour, a primary school teacher is \" t y p i c a l of young people at present, extremely confident with the attitude that 'the world i s 78 ours'.\" Lao Ren is dismayed by t h i s \"young person who harboured utter innocence in his I d e a l i s t i c pursuit, but was b l i n d . In the teachings transmitted to him, he was f u l l of s u p e r s t i t i o n about the Party and leadership; he was able to accept handed-down explanations concerning the c o n f l i c t 88 79 between ideals and r e a l i t y , ' never losing hope\". Lao Ren's negative impression of thi s young i n t e l l e c t u a l i s superimposed on the reminiscence of his own youth when as a \"foreign student i n Japan, and a member of the Communist Party; his entire head was f i l l e d with ideas of 'Recover Taiwan, Liberate China* even to the extent of including the l o f t y and 80 i d e a l i s t i c a s p i r a t i o n of ' l i b e r a t i n g a l l people'.\" This comparison between the teacher's unquestioning idealism and complete p o l i t i c a l indoctrination with the i d e a l i s t i c s e l f of Lao Ren's youth implies that the teacher w i l l s i m i l a r l y suffer a loss of ideals. Just as Lao Ren has become cy n i c a l from his b i t t e r experience of betrayal by the Communist Party, the implication exists that the teacher's blind idealism w i l l lead to similar disillusionment. The degree of Lao Ren's disillusionment is thus i n d i r e c t l y emphasized by the comparison between the teacher's undiscerning f a i t h in the Communist Party and Lao Ren's p o l i t i c a l ardour of his youth. Other factors contributing to Lao Ren's disillusionment are emphasized through d e t a i l s in flashback sequences of his mistreatment by the p o l i t i c a l system. Despite his years of loya l service to the Party which began with his incarceration by the Japanese in the 19 40's when he was doing underground work, and included his personal s a c r i f i c e in which he l e f t his wife and daughter to j o i n the \"Revolution\" and his dedicated service as a Party cadre, he had been labelled a \" r i g h t i s t \" during a p u r i f i c a t i o n campaign and sent to a May Seventh cadre 89 school in Heilongjlang for reform through labour. The i n j u s t i c e of the p o l i t i c a l system's treatment of Lao Ren i s reinforced by the long history of his p o l i t i c a l misfortunes and by the fact that he again is the target of the recent investigation of the Tiananmen Incident. His opinion that detention in a \"study c l a s s \" had become more \"ordinary than a 81 casual meal at home\" poignantly emphasizes the numerous times that he had been detained during various p o l i t i c a l campa igns. Another reason for Lao Ren's eroded f a i t h in the Communist Party l i e s in the harmful e f f e c t the Party's p o l i c i e s had on his family. Its p o l i c i e s not only affected him, but also brought unhappiness and gri e f to the family he acquired in China when he married again. During the Cultural Revolution, his stepson who had borne the burden of his natural father's \"counterrevolutionary\" l a b e l , now had to break off his r e l a t i o n s h i p with his stepfather who was accused 82 of being \"thoroughly perverse\" and \"absolutely 83 unrepentent\" in addition to a long l i s t of other crimes. His stepson could only \"volunteer\" to r e s e t t l e in Inner Mongolia during the \"Rustication Movement\". His wife also suffered so much psychological stress that her \"entire head of 84 black hair turned white\" and although \"she was not quite f i f t y years of age, her back had already become stooped, 85 completely resembling an old woman\". The influence of Chen's resolved gri e f upon her f i c t i o n i s evident not only in her thematic development of loss which 90 includes portraying a protagonist's attempts at resistance, but also in her e d i t o r i a l commentary. Chen's need to voice her c r i t i c i s m also results in lack of authorial o b j e c t i v i t y as well as character manipulation. Structural cohesiveness also becomes a problem as she places more emphasis on her message than on her s t y l e . Authorial intrusion contributes to the story's s t r u c t u r a l weakness. The third-person narrative which is intended to convey a free flowing account of thought and emotion through i n t e r i o r monologue is destroyed by d i d a c t i c passages which are inconsistent in tone with the rest of the story. These pedantic and intrusive comments are redundant since Chen's message i s pointedly clear from the story's focus i t s e l f . Yet Chen feels feels compelled to l i s t the reasons for Lao Ren's loss of f a i t h in the Communist Party in e x p l i c i t , s t r i d e n t passages scattered throughout the narrative. These vehement denunciations lessen the c r e d i b i l i t y of Lao Ren's characterization because he is imbued with knowledge that i s extraneous to his character. Not only does the obtrusive q u a l i t y of these passages detract from the general tone of the story, i t also creates the impression that the entire story i s purposely layered with successive arguments to support Chen's opinion that China's system i s a f a i l u r e . For example, Lao Ren's grievous tone in his pointed c r i t i c i s m appears more of a r e f l e c t i o n of the author: \"Mao Zedong had declared that 'Power comes out of the barrel of a gun', but once he had a gun in his hand he forgot the millions of underground workers who 91 were unarmed. He was f u l l y aware that without these Party members who were in and out of j a i l , he would have been unable to enter the c i t y of Beijing, yet many years after the event, in the s e t t l i n g of accounts he blamed them for being unable to \"die for a righteous cause'.\" 86 Simi l a r l y , Lao Ren's c r i t i c a l assessment of the Tiananmen r i o t betrays knowledge of the event that only the author could possess as she i s writing about the incident in hindsight, for example: \"Clearly, i t was an isolated act, (but they) stubbornly asserted that i t was planned, moreover the people that had requested democracy and freedom were i d e n t i f i e d as rebellious counter-revolutionaries. In order to prop up Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong did not hesitate to s t r i k e down and completely destroy his comrades-in-arms. This o r i g i n a l l y was the t r i c k of \"You can always think up a charge i f you are intent on condemning someone'. This handy pretense of democracy was as ludicrous as a seasoned courtesan coveting an archway to commemorate her v i r t u e . Was there a single day in the dozens of years that the Communist Party had proclaimed \"Believe in the masses, depend on the masses' that they didn't consider the masses simpleminded.\" 87 Another problem that arises from Chen's emphasis on her message over technique i s s t r u c t u r a l incoherence and disjointedness. The story's structure appears di s j o i n t e d because i t s time frame spans a twenty-four hour period in the l i f e of Lao Ren but that one day is spliced with at least f i v e alternations in Chen's use of flashback sequences to cover over forty years of his personal history. The constant and abrupt s h i f t s in time gives the structure a fragmented qu a l i t y . Unlike the time-shift sequences in \"Geng Er in Be i j i n g \" which enhance the immediacy of Geng Er's emotions and his reactions to loss because they focus on his inner state, 92 flashbacks in \"Old Man\" lack cohesiveness between segments because they are intended primarily to supply d e t a i l s of a l l the interrogations, torture, j a i l i n g s , purges, struggle sessions, detentions in study classes, and physical i l l n e s s e s that Lao Ren has endured. Thus, Chen's need to fuse her p o l i t i c a l opinion with her f i c t i o n r esults in her use of \"Lao Ren\" as a symbol of her protest. Chen's compulsion to protest leads to e d i t o r i a l i z i n g . In addition, the omniscient q u a l i t y of Lao Ren's c r i t i c i s m betrays Chen's weakness for putting words into her character's mouth. Authorial intrusion in the form of d i d a c t i c passages also weakens the story's structure which i s already weighed down by cumbersome flashbacks, pedantic tone and a predictable conclusion. In sections of the text that are free from intrusive e d i t o r i a l commentary, Chen's s k i l l f u l use of imagery to dramatize Lao Ren's emotional state p a r t i a l l y offsets other s t r u c t u r a l weaknesses. Images of the sea and the wind representing Lao Ren's i n t e r i o r landscape are interspersed throughout the text in order to create a sense of l o s s . Whenever Lao Ren thinks of the wife and daughter he l e f t in Taiwan, his loneliness and longing is poignantly conveyed through powerful and v i v i d images of ocean waves. In his reminiscence he remembers staring out of his airplane window at the sea below. As he looks down at the sea below with i t s 88 \"blue waves resembling a mirror\", the depth of his loneliness and dejection i s revealed in the dual function of 93 t h i s scene. At one l e v e l , the sea is likened to \"a mirror\" which r e f l e c t s Lao Ren's emotional state; thus, as he looks at the waves he cannot help but admit to himself his feelings of loneliness and dejection. At another l e v e l , the sea is a 89 metaphor for his fathomless \"feelings of homesickness\" which 90 \" i n that moment... resembled the roaring waves..\". Imagery also builds a cumulative sense of loss in the story's emotional setting as layer upon layer of Lao Ren's feelings are peeled away to reveal a core of despondency. Whenever Lao Ren r e c a l l s his previous hope of being reunited with his family in Taiwan, that hope i s associated with memories of the physical symptoms of his ga s t r i c ulcer. Lao Ren's loss of hope and feelings of f u t i l i t y i s v i v i d l y conveyed in thi s image: \"Looking at each mouthful of fresh blood turning black on the f l o o r , he f e l t that his hope was 91 i d e n t i c a l to thi s darkening, congealing blood\". Visual impact of scene again emphasizes the poignancy of Lao Ren's wasted years. The resu l t of his fort y years in China has resulted only in disappointed ideals, f a i l e d dreams and unrealized hopes. The passage of time and tr a g i c waste of Lao Ren's l i f e i s powerfully conveyed through the \"urgent\" sound of the clock on Lao Ren's dresser. The fact that Lao Ren's longing for his home in Taiwan has remained with him after a l l these years f o r c e f u l l y emphasizes the pathos of his s i t u a t i o n . The t i c k i n g of the clock, Lao Ren's longing for home and his nostalgic memories a l l add to the the sense of loss that i s conveyed in the f i n a l scene: 94 \"Some time ago, the wind outside his window had started up again; a blast that whistled by destroyed the s t i l l n e s s of the night. After the sound of the wind had died down, the 'tick tock 1 of the clock on the dresser seemed e s p e c i a l l y clear and urgent in the s i l e n c e . As Lao Ren listened a t t e n t i v e l y , he gradually became aware of a rare and compact f e e l i n g . He f e l t that t h i s kind of a s o l i t a r y and peaceful night could not be used to create some senseless p o l i t i c a l nonsense. This night was best suited to reminiscing -- for remembering far-away friends and for r e l i v i n g the former dreams of youth. It was most suited for closing his eyes, and l e t t i n g his thoughts f l y , far far away f l o a t i n g over oceans and seas to be with his family\". 92 Imagery, in addition to symbolizing Lao Ren's emotional state also conveys his degraded status. The degree to which his d i g n i t y has been eroded is v i v i d l y captured in the vi s u a l and olfactory impact of the graphic image of cleaning t o i l e t s . In the course of several p o l i t i c a l purges, during which he had been investigated and then assigned to clean t o i l e t s , his eroded d i g n i t y and status is v i v i d l y depicted by the association of his self-worth with \"a rock at the bottom of a 93 l a t r i n e , both foul and hard\". The image of t o i l e t s in addition to i t s metaphorical function also acts as a s t r u c t u r a l l i n k i n g device between Lao Ren's past and his present. When the story begins, Lao Ren remembers that i t i s his turn to clean the public t o i l e t in his compound. The association of t o i l e t s in Lao Ren's mind with the past is a device that allows d e t a i l s of Lao Ren's history to be woven into the narrative. He had cleaned t o i l e t s during his imprisonment by the Japanese; he had cleaned them during the Cultural Revolution when he was sent to the countryside for 95 labour reform; now he is s t i l l cleaning them. The s t o r i e s in both Mayor Yin and Old Man are characterized by the common theme of devastating physical, psychological and s p i r i t u a l losses which individuals experienced as a resu l t of p o l i t i c a l chaos brought on by the Cultural Revolution. However, these two anthologies can be distinguished on the basis of the d i f f e r e n t stages they represent in Chen's grieving process. The sto r i e s in Mayor Yin r e f l e c t Chen's i n i t i a l impulses of gr i e f which include documentation of her loss and v a l i d a t i o n of the past. The Old Man s t o r i e s r e f l e c t Chen's reformulated purpose or resolved g r i e f . Hence, there is a corresponding change in Chen's writing. The r e s u l t of Chen's compulsion to protest through her f i c t i o n i s that her work's a r t i s t i c i n t e g r i t y i s undermined because l i t e r a r y technique is made subordinate to her pr i n c i p a l message. Consequently, the qu a l i t y of the sto r i e s in Old Man does not match the l e v e l of s k i l l found in the stories in Mayor Yin. The s t o r i e s in Old Man as a r e f l e c t i o n of Chen's newly reformulated purpose are characterized by the protagonist's token symbol of protest that is associated with his reaction to l o s s . This resistance however is only a p a r t i a l solution to the problem, which l i e s with the system I t s e l f . The dismal tone in a story's ending In addition to the lack of a clear solution to the protagonist's problem reveals Chen's underlying message which is that as long as an individual is 96 forced to comply with a r i g i d t o t a l i t a r i a n system, he w i l l continue to l i v e a l i f e of c u r t a i l e d freedom that i s characterized by loss. 97 Notes to Chapter Three 1 Chen Jo-hsi, Preface to Lao ren (Old Man), (Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1978), p. 3. 2 Chen Jo-hsi, \"Dao nian Lin Tongqi j i a o shou\" (Mourning over Professor Lin Tongqi\", Shenghuo s u i b i (Jottings on L i f e ) , (Taipei: shi bao wen hua chu ban s h i , 1981), p. 163. 3 Ibid. 4 Chen Jo-hsi, Lao ren (Old Man), (Taipei: Lian he bao she, 1978), p. 153. 5 Ibid., p. 137. (During the Cultural Revolution, an Individual's family background was c l a s s i f i e d as either \"red\", and therefore \"good\" or \"black\" and therefore \"bad\". \"Red\" categories usually referred to revolutionary martyrs and cadres, s o l d i e r s , i n d u s t r i a l workers, poor peasants, and lower middle peasants. \"Black\" categories included c a p i t a l i s t s , pre-l i b e r a t i o n r i c h peasants, landlords, r i g h t i s t s and counter-revolutionaries . ) 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., P- 141. 8 Ibid., P- 140. 9 Ibid., P- 139 . 10 Ibid., P- 138. 11 Ibid., P- 136. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., P- 140. 16 Ibid., P- 141. 17 Ibid., P- 147. 18 Ibid. 19 See footnote number f i v e . 98 20 Chen Jo-hsi, \"The Tunnel\" (Di dao), trans, by Chi-Chen Wang in Two Writers and the Cultural Revolution: Lao She and Chen Jo-hsi, ed. George Kao, (Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1980), p. 149. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p. 147. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., p. 148. 25 Ibid., p. 141. 26 The o r i g i n a l version was published in the L i t e r a r y supplement of the United Daily News, Taipei, November 11, 1977 as c i t e d in George Kao, ed. Two Writers and the Cultural Revolution, (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 1980), p. 149. 27 Chen Jo-hsi, \"The Tunnel\", trans, by Chi-chen Wang, p. 147. 28 Ibid., p. 142. 29 Ibid., p. 145. 30 Ibid., p. 147. 31 This story belongs to Chen Jo-hsi z i xuan j i (Self-Selected Stories of Chen Jo-hsi), (Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban shi ye gong s i , 1976) but has been included here because of i t s thematic focus and because of i t s inclusion in the English t r a n s l a t i o n of The Execution of Mayor Yin. 32 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, trans, by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 149. 33 Chen Jo-hsi, Lao Ren, p. 92. 34 Ibid., p. 107. 35 Ibid., p. 98. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 99 40 Ibid., p. 97. 41 Ibid. 4 2 Ibid., p. 90. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., p. 103. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., p.95. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p. 100. 50 Ou Yangzi, \"Mantan Chen Jo-hsi de 'Chun Chi'\"(An Informal Discussion of Chen Jo-hsi's 'Spring is Late'\" in Chen Jo-hsi, Lao Ren (Old Man), p. 204. 51 Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, p. 219. 52 Ibid., p. 171. 53 Ibid., p. 216. 54 Ibid., p. 209. 55 Chen Jo-hsi, \"My Friend Ai Fen\" (Nu you Ai Fen) trans, by Richard Kent and Vivian Hsu in Born of the Same Roots, ed. Vivian Hsu, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), p. 302. 56 Ibid., p. 282. 57 Ibid., p. 278. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., p. 286. 60 Ibid., p. 279. 61 Ibid., pp. 280-281. 62 Ibid., p. 280. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid., p. 286. 100 65 Chen Jo-hsi, Preface to Lao Ren, p. 3. 66 Chen Jo-hsi, \"My Friend Ai Fen\", p. 286. 67 Chen Jo-hsi, \"Ding Yun\" (Ding Yun) trans, by Chi-Chen Wang in Two Writers and the Cultural Revolution: Lao She and Chen Jo-shi, ed. George Kao, (Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1980), p. 140. 68 Ibid., p. 140. 69 Ibid., p. 133. 70 Ibid., p. 139. 71 Ibid., p. 133. 72 Cheng Yung-hsiao, \"Ping j i e Chen Jo-hsi de Lao Ren\" (A Review of Chen Jo-hsi's Old Man, Shu ping shu mu (Book Review and Bibliography), no.65, 1978, p. 44. 73 Ibid., p. 45. 74 Chen Jo-hsi, \"Shenghuo s u i b i \" (Jottings on L i f e ) , p. 163. 75 After the death of Premier Zhou Enlai in January, 1976 the struggle between Jiang Qing and her a l l i e s and supporters of Deng Xiaoping i n t e n s i f i e d . During the Qing Ming F e s t i v a l (a t r a d i t i o n a l day for remembering the dead), on A p r i l 4, 1976 thousands of people l a i d f l o r a l wreaths in Tiananmen Square at the base of the Revolutionary Martyr's Memorial in memory of Zhou E n l a i . In addition to wreaths, written eulogies symbolizing t h e i r i n d i r e c t support of Deng Xiaoping were also c i r c u l a t e d in the square. On A p r i l 5th, the square was cordoned off and security forces were brought in to disperse demonstrators. A violent clash ensued where hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and some were reportedly k i l l e d . On A p r i l 7th, the Tiananmen Incident or later to be ca l l e d the A p r i l F i f t h Incident was o f f i c i a l l y denounced as counter-revolutionary. Deng Xiaoping was blamed for the event, c r i t i c i z e d for his \" r e v i s i o n i s t \" p o l i c i e s \" and subsequently removed from a l l his posts. 76 Chen Jo-hsi, Lao Ren, p. 29. 77 Ibid., p. 30. 78 Ibid., p. 4. 79 Ibid., p. 5. 80 Ibid., p. 5 . 101 81 I b i d . r P- 7. 82 I b i d . t P- 27 83 I b i d . 84 I b i d . i P- 29 85 I b i d . 86 I b i d . t P- 28 87 I b i d . r P- 19 88 I b i d . / P- 40 89 I b i d . 90 I b i d . 91 I b i d . 92 I b i d . / P- 50 93 I b i d . / P- 27 Chapter Four Resolution Repatriates is linked to Chen's two anthologies by the common theme of loss. This chapter discusses Its significance as an autobiographical chronicle of Chen's experience of g r i e f . By chronicling loss, her novel demonstrates her reformulated purpose to speak out about Chinese conditions. This novel is a l i t e r a r y catharsis for the tension that arises from her g u i l t over leaving China. Chen's barely disguised zeal of mission looms throughout th i s novel rendering t h i s work a polemic. I w i l l look at the method in which she develops her argument, namely her use of imagery, rhetoric, declarative statements, event of plot and characterization in enhancing theme. In addition, I w i l l discuss the novel's denouement where the inconsistency in tone and characterization jeopardizes the novel's s t r u c t u r a l i n t e g r i t y . As outlined by Marris in his grieving theory, resolution of g r i e f involves restoring a thread of continuity in the meaning of l i f e by detaching i t from the rela t i o n s h i p which incorporated i t and re-establishing i t independently of that r e l a t i o n s h i p . The thread of meaning that is retrieved from Chen's China experience — to serve China by being in the country — is reformulated to serving her \"motherland\" from abroad. The search by Chen's protagonists for meaning and purpose in l i f e i s a f i c t i o n a l representation of her own struggle to resolve the inherent c o n f l i c t s of g r i e f . The most s i g n i f i c a n t element in Repatriates is that Chen 103 answers the question she restates from \"Night Duty\" regarding the best method for the repatriate to serve China. This answer is contained in the dialogue between the novel's main protagonist, Xin Mei and her friend, L i Ya-nan who i s also a re p a t r i a t e . The nature of their debate sets the s t a r t i n g point for Chen's premise that the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s role in a t o t a l i t a r i a n society is severely diminished. As L i Ya-nan, who is Chen's a l t e r ego states: \"The expression of c r i t i c a l opinions i s an i n t e l l e c t u a l t r a d i t i o n from our past, i f we are 'yes-men', what kind of i n t e l l e c t u a l s are we?\" 1 Since the i n t e l l e c t u a l cannot f u l f i l his moral duty of voicing his c r i t i c a l views while he i s in China, the l o g i c a l solution is as L i Ya-nan states: \"In t h i s kind of 'one party' society, where there i s no leeway for the i n t e l l e c t u a l to speak out, 2 why not speak f o r t h r i g h t l y outside the country.\" This view of the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s moral r e s p o n s i b i l i t y to c r i t i c i z e is repeated later in Xin Mei's exhortation to her friend, Wei Ming, an Overseas Chinese v i s i t i n g from the United States : \"Wei Ming, a moment ago you said that there were flaws in China and that mistakes are being made...Then you and people l i k e you ought to stand up and p u b l i c l y point them out...\" 3 Repatriates is Chen's method of \" p u b l i c l y \" pointing out the weaknesses in China's p o l i t i c a l regime. As she even acknowledged in her postscript to another anthology: \"With regard to both sides of the s t r a i t , the late seventies without 104 exception were troubled times. I f e l t r e l a t i v e l y sentimental about my home country. Whenever something happened I would be e a s i l y agitated; often I couldn't stand i t and had to publish my views. (These) were unsatisfactory and since I couldn't write p o l i t i c a l commentary, I could only fuse my opinions with my short s t o r i e s . Thereupon, I who had a l l along opposed l i t e r a t u r e in the service of p o l i t i c s , in the end had 4 unconsciously been p r a c t i c i s i n g i t in earnest.\" This fusion of Chen's f i c t i o n with her b e l i e f that she must voice c r i t i c a l protest is evidence of her reformulated purpose. In addition to the novel's function as a medium of protest, i t is also a l i t e r a r y catharsis for Chen's residual g u i l t over leaving China. Chen attempts to resolve that g u i l t by imbuing her protagonists with the elements of her emotional struggle. It becomes obvious that Xin Mei's inner turmoil revolving around her desire to leave China is a f i c t i v e record of Chen's own g u i l t and v a c i l l a t i o n in reaching her decision to leave. Just as Xin Mei feels torn in two, with one half of 5 her \"wishing to r e s i s t \" while the other half \"reproaches 6 herself for being a deserter\" , s i m i l a r l y t h i s c o n f l i c t stayed with Chen after she arrived in the West. The projection of this c o n f l i c t i s manifested in the d i f f e r e n t solutions of Xin Mei and L i Ya-nan to their i d e n t i c a l dilemma. L i Ya-nan's solution is to leave China; Xin Mei's solution is to stay. Although Chen, l i k e L i Ya-nan found that p o l i t i c a l inconsistencies made i t impossible for her to stay, she was s t i l l emotionally attached to the b e l i e f that she should have 105 7 remained in China. The discrepancy between Chen's b e l i e f and the r e a l i t y of her departure results in extreme psychological tension. This tension is only a l l e v i a t e d when Chen imbues her protagonist, Xin Mei with a course of action that she, in real l i f e could not follow. Chen also j u s t i f i e s her personal decision to leave China by explaining why the i n t e l l e c t u a l becomes d i s i l l u s i o n e d . The core of Chen's r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n i s embodied in L i Ya-nan's statement: \"I do not think that this s a c r i f i c e that i s without value i s a p a t r i o t i c act. Even i f we were born at the wrong time and should s a c r i f i c e ourselves, i t ' s not worthwhile s a c r i f i c i n g our children too. I think that in order to repay the kindness of our motherland, I w i l l have to find a more 8 eff e c t i v e method.\" Chen's \"more e f f e c t i v e method\" l i e s in her f i c t i o n . Chen f e l t g u i l t y not only over her departure from China, but also over what she perceives as a f a i l i n g in her moral duty to speak out in protest while she was in China. Her remorse and d i s t r e s s is evident ln her essay written in 1978 about China's legal system. She states: \"When the Mao-Lin Constitution was drawn up, I was s t i l l on the mainland and c l e a r l y knew that i t was ludicrous. But I dared not refuse to join in the acclamation of i t . This kind of obstructive and apathetic state of mind, s t i l l makes me f e e l sad and ashamed today.\" 9 Chen's f i c t i o n is also an attempt to redeem herself for not having spoken out in protest while she was in China. Chen's reformulated purpose of protest involves characterizing 106 Chinese t o t a l i t a r i a n society by a series of s p i r i t u a l , psychological, and physical losses. To convey her thesis Chen uses several methods, the f i r s t of which is nature imagery to create ambience as well as to represent her protagonist's psychological landscape. Her second method consists of rhetoric to reinforce the strength of her argument. Her t h i r d method consists of declarative statements made by her protagonists in dialogue with one another. The fourth method Chen uses to s o l i d i f y her case is by event in plot and characterization. Images involving elements of Nature in Repatr iates as in Chen's previous short s t o r i e s perform two functions. Nature imagery contributes to the story's ambience by matching the downward s p i r a l l i n g e f f e c t in mood. Nature imagery also r e f l e c t s the protagonist's state of demoralization as a r e s u l t of the loss he observes or experiences. In Chen's short s t o r i e s , she uses metaphorical description that dwells on the more threatening aspects of natural forces to foreshadow t r a g i c events, to emphasize disorder in the protagonist's p o l i t i c a l environment and to accentuate the protagonist's symptoms of psychological trauma. In \"Mayor Yin\", threatening and imposing descriptions of the mountain and the moon function as a portent of doom and as a symbol of the h o s t i l e forces in Mayor Yin's p o l i t i c a l environment. Nature images in \"Night Duty\", \"Ding Yun\", \"Old Man\" and \"Tunnel\" create an ambience of desolation that r e f l e c t s the protagonist's state of dejection. In \"Night 107 Duty\" Liu Xiangdong's feelings of powerlessness and al i e n a t i o n are symbolized by the description of his overwhelming surroundings that make him fee l helpless and isolated. In \"Ding Yun\", the sense of al i e n a t i o n that arises from being stranded on a farm in a remote place l i k e Heilongjiang is captured in the narrator's comment that she is \"overwhelmed by the vast loneliness of the place\". In \"Old Man\", Lao Ren's state of physical and mental di s t r e s s i s mirrored in descriptions of c h i l l y weather. In \"Tunnel\", Hong Shifu's withdrawal into apathy and depression is r e f l e c t e d in the description of winter's harshness. S i m i l a r l y , Chen uses images of water, the moon and the sun in Repatr iates to mirror Xin Mei's reaction to loss and to symbolize the capriciousness of her p o l i t i c a l environment. Chen's b e l i e f that such p o l i t i c a l vagaries are the chief reason for her protagonists' experience of loss is i n d i r e c t l y shown by nature images. Images of natural elements enhance the sense of loss that arises from either the actual experience of loss or from the protagonist's reaction to the events around him. The novel's chronicle of Xin Mei's search for an answer to the dilemma that is faced, by her and other i n t e l l e c t u a l s includes using images of the sea to symbolize her inner turmoil. After Xin Mei learns that Su Tao, an i n t e l l e c t u a l who was born and raised in China and nurtured \"on the milk of 10 the Party\" is learning to swim in order to escape to freedom, the implication of Su Tao's decision causes Xin Mei 108 to f e e l great d i s t r e s s . Her d i s t r e s s is i n d i r e c t l y represented by the images that spring to her mind whenever she thinks of Su Tao. Xin Mei i n v o l u n t a r i l y thinks of Su Tao \"struggling in the t e r r i f y i n g billows of the sea — in front of her the opposite shore was not v i s i b l e , while behind her were sharks 11 with open, basin-sized sanguinous mouths.\" This powerful image in Xin Mei's mind of Su Tao struggling in the t o r r e n t i a l waves symbolizes the predicament of the i n t e l l e c t u a l in China. Like Su Tao, the i n t e l l e c t u a l i s tossed amidst the turbulent waves of p o l i t i c a l movements. Su Tao's uncertain future points to the equally unpredictable fate of the i n t e l l e c t u a l , who l i k e Su Tao, is in danger from the \"sharks\" or h o s t i l e p o l i t i c a l forces in his environment. Su Tao's tra g i c circumstances only reinforces Xin Mei's doubts about her own future. If Su Tao, who possessed an impeccable proletarian background, could be labelled a \"counter-revolutionary\" and get sent to the countryside for reform, what was the future for herself, an i n t e l l e c t u a l that was tainted by western \"bourgeois influences\". Xin Mei's apprehensions after she hears of Su Tao's escape is v i v i d l y revealed in her nightmare in which she dreams that Su Tao is \"hanging on to a piece of shipwrecked boat (and) struggling in 12 the water\". The combination of Xin Mei's questions of \"Is 13 there t r u l y no hope for such a large country\" and \"Why did 14 Ah Tao (Su Tao) take t h i s route?\" with these images of \"hidden dangers\" transforms the questions into r h e t o r i c . This kind of rhetoric reinforces Chen's message that the only 109 l o g i c a l solution to the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s dilemma is for him to leave China. The f i r s t subtle indicator of Xin Mei's d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with her present circumstances (which eventually leads to her desire to leave China) is given in the symbolic association of her longing for her home in Taiwan with the image of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) \"flowing towards the sea, flowing 15 towards the ocean and flowing towards (her) old home.\" The sea in t h i s scene as in \"Old Man\" functions as a r e f l e c t o r of psychological state. While Xin Mei looks at the water, she i s forced to acknowledge her real f e e l i n g s . Her disappointment is revealed in the contrast between the daydreams of her student days in Taiwan and her present emotions. In the past she had fantasized that l i k e L i Bai (Li Po) she would also d r i f t i d y l l i c a l l y on the Chang Jiang and wander around with a book of poems in hand. Xin Mei's feelings which \"are a 16 complex mixture of joy and sadness\" while she is t r a v e l l i n g on the Jiang reveal the disappointment of unmet expectations. Xin Mei's boat t r i p marks the beginning of her search for a solution to her diminished role and degraded status in Chinese society. As she watches the spray from the boat which \"curled 17 up and f e l l again, unveering in i t s course toward the east\" she feels \"a similar impulse to flee toward the sea in search 18 of her home\". Another layer of meaning can be derived in Xin Mei's comparison of L i Bai with herself. L i Bai had wandered on the Chang Jiang by choice. In contrast, the Image of Xin Mei's 110 \"wandering\" symbolizing her diminished role has come about as a r e s u l t o£ p o l i t i c a l p o l i c i e s towards i n t e l l e c t u a l s and repatriates, When Xin Mei f i n a l l y acknowledges that she wants to leave China, that desire is mixed with feelings of g u i l t and uncertainty due to her husband's adamant r e f u s a l . Xin Mei's inner turmoil is r e f l e c t e d In the dreariness of her physical s e t t i n g . The fact that i t is winter reinforces the bleakness of Xin Mei's emotional landscape: \"Outside the window, the snow f e l l t h i c k l y ; snowflakes also d r i f t e d n o i s e l e s s l y on to the window l i k e cat's paws. The only l i g h t in the room was from the small lamp on top of the desk, i t s feeble rays casting a drowsy c h i l l i n e s s in the room.\" 19 Xin Mei's hope of leaving is symbolized by the \"feeble rays\" of the lamp. The l i k e l i h o o d of that hope being f u l f i l l e d is equally dim. After Xin Mei's husband, Tao Xinsheng becomes the target of an investigation and is required to submit a written s e l f -c r i t i c i s m , Xin Mei's doubts about her family's future are confirmed. Despite her husband's firm refusal to leave China, Xin Mei t r i e s to contact his former schoolmate who i s v i s i t i n g from abroad. The image of her physical surroundings accentuate the low point in her emotional state: \"She did not know what time i t was, but i t was quiet in the v i c i n i t y of the dormitory; many people had already extinguished their l i g h t s , those windows that were l i t up were covered by heavy curtains and were completely s i l e n t . The sky above which did not have a moon or any stars, formed a bottomless p i t . \" 20 111 Similar to \"Old Man\" where Lao Ren's loneliness is metaphorically represented by the \"fathomless sea\", Xin Mei's depression is equated to a \"bottomless p i t \" . As she sets out in search of her husband's friend, the image of the \"feeble 21 l i g h t \" from the street lamp which l i g h t s her way, symbolizes her hope of a change in her husband's decision to stay. After Xin Mei f a i l s to locate her husband's frie n d , the extinguishing of even th i s f a i n t hope is symbolized by the absence of any l i g h t in a scene that is almost exactly the same as the one above: \"The completely dark sky that was without a moon or any stars was l i k e a bottomless p i t that engulfed her. It was as i f Xin Mei was walking in the darkness and could not see a single ray of l i g h t . Though the north wind could not be heard, i t no i s e l e s s l y increased the grim and deathly s t i l l n e s s of the night...\" 22 Again, imagery reveals the extent of Xin Mei's despondency through metaphorical representation. Imagery also enhances the novel's depressed mood in p a r a l l e l with development of events in plot. Xin Mei's morale is diminished when her husband's good friend, L i Yongzhong i s investigated and detained, and her husband i s required to write a s e l f - c r i t i c i s m . The mood of despondency at t h i s part of the novel i s e f f e c t i v e l y enhanced by the contrast between Xin Mei's present misery and her reminiscence of a former, happier New Year's eve when she was a c h i l d in Taiwan and her present misery. The sombre mood is strengthened by the description of the wind which \" i n the darkness of the night, 112 the sound of i t s gusts one after another l i k e a sob as well as a shout, e s p e c i a l l y grated on the ear; i t shook the windows so 23 v i o l e n t l y that they were also swaying.\" In \"Geng Er in Bei j i n g \" the contrast between the joyous sound of firecrackers and the protagonist's inner state emphasizes his dejection. A similar contrast in the following scene emphasizes the degree of Xin Mei's depression and loneliness: \"Suddenly, the sound of a lone firecracker, s o l i t a r y and desolate from far away further reminded her of the endless night ahead of her, as well as a l l her humuliations of the evening. Just then, two t r a i l s of tears slowly t r i c k l e d down her cheeks, s l i p p i n g c o l d l y down her neck. She missed her old home, her parents, and even the t r i v i a l things of the past. She didn't want to think about th i s melancholy f e s t i v a l ; but she was even more a f r a i d that i t would be representative of the days to come.\" 2 4 A dramatic s h i f t in nature imagery at the conclusion of Repatr iates coincides with a transformation of Xin Mei's state of mind. The sudden beneficence of Xin Mei's surroundings which is in sharp contrast to the h o s t i l e forces previously portrayed symbolizes both Xin Mei's resolution of g r i e f from her bereavement as well as the resolution of her moral dilemma concerning whether she should remain in China or leave. Consequently, there is a r e p e t i t i o n of benign scenes of weather from \"the sky (which was) the colour of egg white The wind was s t i l l and as a res u l t the warmth and 25 moistness of early summer could be smelled in the a i r \" . The mystical and restorative powers of nature is symbolized by the association of sunlight and the shadow i t casts on Xin Mei's 26 sleeve \" l i k e a band of black cloth worn in mourning\" with 113 the description of the sun's heat which \" l i k e waves engulf and 27 penetrates\" her. The association of the image of a black band with the sun's heat reinforces the idea that Xin Mei's g r i e f w i l l be healed by the natural passage of time. Chen's thesis that excesses in the p o l i t i c a l system makes l i f e in China intolerable for the i n t e l l e c t u a l i s also dramatized through the r h e t o r i c a l questions and declarative statements uttered by her protagonists. Chen's portrayal of her protagonists' responses to t h e i r experiences of loss reveals her personal indictment of China's system. Chen's b e l i e f that the repatriate had to leave China is shown through her protagonists' reactions to the events around them. Her protagonists' denunciations of the system which i n t h e i r perception has brought them disappointment, disillusionment and anguish reinforces her point that p o l i t i c a l p o l i c i e s were d i r e c t l y responsible for people's diminished l i v e s . Due to the system's emphasis on the d i l i n e a t i o n of s o c i a l class based s o l e l y on the individual's family's p o l i t i c a l background, a l l kinds of lawless p o l i t i c a l i n j u s t i c e s such as purges, denunciations, and p o l i t i c a l coercion could be j u s t l f a b l y carried out in the name of \"class struggle\". Chen's condemnation of \"class struggle\" i s expressed through the declarative statements and r h e t o r i c a l questions of Xin Mei and other characters. After Xin Mei learns that the authorities have assigned L i Yongzhong's best friend, Si Tuqing the onerous task of keeping him under twenty-four hour surveillance while he i s 114 under detention, her outrage and sympathy for the men is evident in her statement to her husband: \"Si Tuqing! Isn't t h i s a mockery? He and Xiao L i have been long-standing classmates, comrades-in-arms and roommates. Now that they've given him t h i s assignment, what a quandary.\" 27a Xin Mei's husband can only respond resignedly, \"This then is class struggle — a person being compelled to turn against his 28 fri e n d \" . Chen's invective i s also voiced by her characters. When Xin Mei learns that her husband's family's Guomindang background i s the focus of an investigation against him. Xin Mei's indignant and angry c r i t i c i s m reveals the pain of betrayal and disillusionment: \"You earnestly wanted to come back for national reconstruction, not to carry the cross of your parents; moreover i t ' s an intangible cross. As I see i t , i t ' s not you who has f a i l e d the test, i t ' s the Communist Party that has f a i l e d . It's their promise of l e t t i n g bygones be bygones that has not passed the test , i t ' s their bankrupt p o l i c y . . . \" 29 Chen's condemnation of the Communist Party also occurs in Fang Zheng's a l l e g o r i c a l statement to Tao Xinsheng after Tao Xinsheng expresses a desire to see a s t e e l factory at closer range. Fang Zheng's personal feelings of betrayal i s contained in his statement: \" . . . i t looks a t t r a c t i v e only when viewed from afar. It's the same as the distant v i s i o n of Communism — i t ' s within sight but not within reach; that's 30 what confuses people.\" 115 Similarly, Chen's premise that the system destroys l i v e s is e x p l i c i t l y contained in Dr. He's condemnation: \"I'm now convinced, Chairman Mao's May Seventh's p o l i c y k i l l s 31 people\". Chen also i n d i c t s the system for i t s flaws through Xin Mei's reactions to the comments made by a v i s i t i n g friend from abroad. In their dialogue concerning the lack of a legal system, democracy and human ri g h t s , Xin Mei is incensed by her friend's inference that the Chinese have not had these rights for thousands of years and are therefore \"undeserving of 32 freedom and democracy\". Xin Mei's anger revealingly affirms Chen's own position regarding these issues. Chen i n t e n s i f i e s the novel's theme through the implied censure in L i Ya-nan's questions to Xin Mei. While Xin Mei i s t r y i n g to persuade L i Ya-nan to reconsider her decision to leave China, L i Ya-nan asks her how she can bear \"this kind of 33 long-term p o l i t i c a l repression\" and the t e r r i f y i n g \"nameless 34 fear that bores into people's minds l i k e an insect\" Chen's recounting of loss in Repatr iates i s aimed primarily at d i r e c t i n g the reader to the same conclusion as L i Ya-nan's concerning \"the most e f f e c t i v e method of serving the 35 motherland\". The plot which unfolds in a linear progression of successive scenes of misfortune builds a cumulative sense of loss. Chen's novel is b a s i c a l l y an expanded restatement of her short s t o r i e s . The themes in Repatriates r e i t e r a t e Chen's previous st o r i e s of \"Jing Jing's Birthday\", and \"Residency Check\" where she describes the s t r a i n of enforced separations on married 116 couples, and the anxiety of parents over t h e i r children's potential \" p o l i t i c a l errors\". Just as Wen Laoshi in \"Jing Jlng's Birthday\" has to cope with the heavy burden of work, ch i l d - r e a r i n g and p o l i t i c a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s because her husband is away at a May Seventh school, s i m i l a r l y Xin Mei and her friends, Dr. He and Zhao Laoshi cope as \"single parents\". The e f f e c t s of long-term separation on a marital re l a t i o n s h i p i s poignantly revealed in Zhao Laoshi's somewhat b i t t e r statement: \"...we're an old married couple that have been separated for over ten years; we l o s t the i n t e n s i t y of that f i e r y f e e l i n g long ago. To be transferred so that we can be together is a c t u a l l y more of a convenience. When a couple is separated, the greatest hardship is the r a i s i n g of the 36 children.\" Chen's portrayal of Zhao Laoshi's s i t u a t i o n reveals her b e l i e f that the system did irreparable damage to the family unit. Zhao Laoshi and her husband were separated because he had been forced to transfer with his work unit, when i t moved to Sichuan province. Although Zhao Laoshi's college had promised that i t would later find a way to reunite her with her husband after i t turned down her request for a similar transfer, due to bureaucratic delays and the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, after ten years, the couple are s t i l l apart. Chen's portrayal of the e f f e c t on families due to the atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and suspicion engendered by the Cultural Revolution is revealed in Xin Mei's anxiety and v i g i l a n t monitoring of her sons' a c t i v i t i e s . Just as Wen 117 Laoshi in \"Jing Jing's Birthday\" becomes cautious after learning of Xiao Hong's p o l i t i c a l error of saying \"Chairman Mao is a rotten egg\", s i m i l a r l y Xin Mei is concerned about her own sons when she learns of the disaster brought on Dr. He's family by her fiv e year old son's comment. The l i t t l e boy had inadvertently remarked to his nursery school teacher that his father f e l l asleep whenever he read Mao Zedong's writings. His father who already bore the stigma of his family's Guomindang background is subsequently dragged on to a stage, p u b l i c l y denounced and sent to a May Seventh farm. The c h i l d ' s innocent remark brings his father p o l i t i c a l calamity and a f f e c t s him through his mother's stern reprimands and subsequent feelings of g u i l t . Ultimately he withdraws emotionally, becoming permanently morose and isolated. Chen's detailed and rambling chronicling of losses experienced by her protagonists includes the i n h i b i t i o n of people's normal s o c i a l interaction with each other due to t h e i r p o l i t i c a l s e t t i n g . The negative results of \"class struggle\" and p o l i t i c a l movements in which people were expected to routinely inform on and denounce each other were their residual fears, anxiety and mistrust of one another. Although Xin Mei believes that she can r e l y on her sons' nanny, she is s t i l l hesitant to f r e e l y reveal her views since 37 in the end, the nanny was \" s t i l l an outsider\". The p o l i t i c a l s etting which bred an atmosphere of suspicion and cautious behaviour also affected the manner in which friends dealt with each other. Xin Mei is genuinely 118 concerned about her friend, L i Yongzhong after he becomes a target of attack for allegedly aiding Su Tao's escape, but she feigns indifference because of her fear of being implicated. Xin Mei's anxiety and fear of someone discovering that he had v i s i t e d her shortly before his misfortune leads her to 38 \"pretend to neither hear nor ask questions\" whenever talk about L i Yongzhong ar i s e s . Chen also iterates the theme of loss of career, job fulfilment and wasted potential in Repatriates. Like Geng Er in \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" whose i n s t i t u t e was constantly changing i t s focus to s u i t the revolution, L i u Xiangdong and Lao Fu in \"Night Duty\" whose talents are under-utilized and potential wasted, and Ai-Fen's a r t i s t husband in \"My Friend Ai Fen\" who is relegated to a soy sauce factory, the characters in Repatr iates are frustrated by the lack of meaningful careers and the diminishment of their r o l e s . After Tao Xinsheng's return to China he is assigned to work in the area of flood control rather than his s p e c i a l t y of f l u i d mechanics. S i m i l a r l y , L i Ya-nan and Fang Zheng who hold doctorate degrees in mathematics are assigned to an i n s i g n i f i c a n t teacher's college in Wuhan to teach rudimentary arithmetic. The most dramatic waste of an i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s talents i s Dr. He's husband, a leading researcher who i s sent to a farm to tend pigs. Chen devotes a great deal of attention to the loss of love and personal happiness. This issue is the focus in \"Geng Er in B e i j i n g \" , \"Tunnel\", \"My Friend Ai Fen\" and \"Ding Yun\". 119 In Repatr iates t h i s theme i s contained in the t r a g i c love story of L i Yongzhong and Su Tao. The cause of destruction of a c r u c i a l r e l a t i o n s h i p and subsequent s p i r i t u a l anguish in the above s t o r i e s as well as in t h i s novel i s attributed to the system's insistence of merging p o l i t i c a l concerns with the individual's personal private issues such as love and marriage. Like Geng Er and Xiao Qing, L i Yongzhong and Su Tao have no future together because their p o l i t i c a l c l a s s i f i c a t i o n s become incompatible after she is charged with membership in a counterrevolutionary faction. L i Yongzhong's trag i c s i t u a t i o n is lent more pathos because he is forced to choose between his love for Su Tao and his own p o l i t i c a l safety. He chooses the l a t t e r because he believes that his defense of Su Tao would lead only to the incrimination of others as well as meaningless s e l f - s a c r i f i c e . Chen's portrayal of L i Yongzhong's subsequent anguish, g u i l t and torment over repudiating the woman he loves, again underscores the system's pernicious e f f e c t on s o c i a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s . As a res u l t of L i Yongzhong's denial of Su Tao, he is wracked by immense grief and remorse. L i Yongzhong's torment and pain i s exacerbated by his knowledge that he has not only betrayed Su Tao but himself. His action leads to self-recrimination for as he confides to Tao Xinsheng, \"this is the f i r s t time that 39 I've ever play-acted in my entire l i f e \" . In denying Su Tao, L i Yongzhong has denied his own feelings and the truth and beauty of his love for her. Just as Geng Er is deluged by g r i e f a f t e r he chooses to end his relationship with Xiao J i n , 120 s i m i l a r l y L i Yongzhong's repudiation of Su Tao res u l t s in extreme anguish. His acute pain and sharp d i s t r e s s i s evident in his comment: \"I stood on the stage and shouted slogans but inside my heart I was shedding tears. No, I was 40 shedding blood|\" The destruction of the i r r e l a t i o n s h i p as in the love a f f a i r between Geng Er and Xiao Qing is due s o l e l y to their p o l i t i c a l environment. In Repatr iates Chen also repeats the theme of loss of personal choice and freedom that appeared in \"Old Man\", and \"Residency Check\". In \"Old Man\", Lao Ren's lack of personal freedom is emphasized through pressure placed on him by his neighborhood committee to report his a c t i v i t i e s on the day of the Tiananmen Incident. In \"Residency Check\", Peng Yulian's personal freedom and right to privacy is infringed upon by the members of her neighborhood committee as they conspire to obtain evidence of her sexual misconduct. In Repatriates, the individual's loss of his personal freedom is portrayed through the r e s t r i c t i o n of Xin Mei's and Tao Xinsheng's physical mobility. Xin Mel's request to travel during her summer vacation to j o i n her husband who has been posted in Changsha on assignment is refused by the school authorities ostensibly because the journey at the height of summer would be hazardous and a s t r a i n on her health. S i m i l a r l y , after Tao Xinsheng expresses a desire to move to his native province of Sichuan his l e t t e r of request to Premier Zhou Enlai is Intercepted by the public s e c u r i t y bureau. Chen's lengthy chronicling of tr a g i c losses sustained by 121 her i n t e l l e c t u a l protagonists leads to the conclusion that the natural consequence for the repatriate who stays in China is 41 as L i Ya-nan states, \"a s a c r i f i c e that is without value\". Events of plot support the insight of L i Yanan's statement. A l l the protagonists suffer loss either d i r e c t l y or i n d i r e c t l y due to p o l i t i c a l policy. Xin Mei not only endures the pain of disillusionment but also suffers bereavement at the end. Su Tao i s repudiated by the man she loves because of her \"counter-revolutionary\" p o l i t i c a l a c t i v i t i e s . L i Yongzhong not only suffers s p i r i t u a l torment from denying Su Tao, but he becomes a target of a p o l i t i c a l investigation. Dr. He's husband dies from l i v e r cancer because while he is at a May Seventh farm, he delays seeking medical attention u n t i l i t ' s too l a t e . The t r a g i c fates of Chen's protagonists confirm the r e a l i t y of Dr. He's statement that Mao Zedong's p o l i c y k i l l e d people. The extrapolation of t h i s statement superimposed on the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s experience of degradation and s p i r i t u a l s u ffering in Chen's novel serves to castigate the system for i t s f a i l u r e . Chen shows the negative effects of the Cultural Revolution on the individual by providing psychological insight to her characters. As Marris states, when an individual has placed high hopes on a p a r t i c u l a r role or attachment the disappointment of that expectation r e s u l t s in g r i e f . In the case of Chen's protagonists, the i n t e l l e c t u a l repatriate suffers primarily from devastating disillusionment and loss of his role and purpose In Chinese society. The pain 122 and g r i e f experienced by Liu Xiangdong, Geng Er, the narrators i n \"Ren Xiulan\" and \"Nixon's Press Corps\" are the basis of commonality between them and Xin Mei and Tao Xinsheng in thi s novel. Chen concentrates primarily on the psyches of Xin Mei and Tao Xinsheng to chronicle their loss of ideals and to show the effe c t s of that loss. Their loss of Ideals, diminished r o l e , and reduced meaning results in despair and a sense of al i e n a t i o n . Chen's documentation of Tao Xinsheng's psychological deterioration i s an e f f e c t i v e indictment of China's p o l i t i c a l system. The character of Tao Xinsheng i s an extrapolation of Liu Xiangdong in \"Night Duty\". The state of Tao Xinsheng's mind state at the beginning of the novel i s similar to Liu Xiangdong's at the end of \"Night Duty\". The fact that Tao Xinsheng has experienced devastating loss is evident when Xin Mei compares her husband's present personality with the man that he was before coming to China. In the United States, he had been so zealous that he would debate a l l night long defending his i d e a l i s t i c stance on China. But after his return to China, although he would t r y to r a t i o n a l i z e i t s p o l i c i e s to Xin Mei, as time went on \"objective facts would 42 leave him short on words\". These contradictions lead him to compromise his values and create an intolerable tension that eventually r e s u l t s in his suicide. In Wuhan, Xin Mei notes that he has resumed his \"taciturn and morose temperament, only l i s t e n i n g to everything and wrinkling his brow when he heard 123 43 something not to his l i k i n g \" . The pathos o£ Tao Xinsheng's disillusionment is a l l the more powerful as a r e s u l t of L i Yongzhong's comment to Xin Mei: \"Lao Tao i s too innocent and sincere. It's best i f you counsel him. He worships the nation, doctrine and the leadership as i f they were a r e l i g i o n ; In our society t h i s kind of patriotism means banging one's head u n t i l i t bleeds.\" 43a Chen's portrayal of Tao Xinsheng as a fervently p a t r i o t i c i d e a l i s t shows the t r a g i c outcome of his loss of ideals. It is because of the depth of Tao Xinsheng's naiive b e l i e f and f a i t h i n the system that his disillusionment i s a l l the more devastating. Unable to cope with the contradiction between his ideals and p o l i t i c a l r e a l i t i e s his unresolved g r i e f leads to his s u i c i d e . As Marris states, the individual who suffers disappointment when he has set his heart on a certain role or attachment in l i f e w i l l f e e l g r i e f . This gr i e f arises because a c r i s i s of d i s c o n t i n u i t y ensues from his assumptions being d i s c r e d i t e d . The d i s c r e d i t i n g of such assumptions which have become c r u c i a l to one's i d e n t i t y leads to a loss of s e l f . Xin Mei's loss of i d e n t i t y is poignantly revealed when L i Yanan points out to her how she has compromised her b e l i e f s . L i Yanan believes that Xin Mei and Tao Xinsheng have become \"Mao 44 Zedong's domesticated t o o l s \" and asks Xin Mei, \"..when he dies, w i l l you be transformed again into another idol's 45 domesticated instrument?\" L i Ya-nan's b e l i e f that Xin Mei's r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n and compromise of her b e l i e f s has led to an 124 even more t r a g i c loss is revealed in her r h e t o r i c a l question 46 to Xin Mei: \"Do your true selves s t i l l e x i s t ? \" The significance of Chen's novel l i e s in Its projection of her struggle to recover purpose and meaning in her grieving process. This struggle is represented in Xin Mei's journey of s e l f discovery as she ponders over her l o s t ideals, her lost sense of purpose and d i r e c t i o n in l i f e . What these losses prove is that, at least for the i n t e l l e c t u a l repatriate he cannot be true to himself, his ideals and his b e l i e f s If he remains in China. If he stays in China, the system cannot guarantee that he w i l l be able to l i v e his role as he perceives i t . He cannot voice his c r i t i c a l opinions without fear of r e p r i s a l . Yet, he feels a moral obligation to stay in China, because as Geng Er states: \"In the f i n a l analysis I am Chinese... how I f e e l is my own business, but defending the 47 national image is a moral obligation\". A similar feeling of moral duty i s expressed by Xin Mei when she learns of L i Ya-nan's decision to leave China. She states to L i Ya-nan: \"You returned because of love for the country; to leave is to deal 48 a blow to the nation's prestige\". Hence l i e s the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s dilemma. Chen's novel f u l f i l s two functions. F i r s t , i t provides a convincing argument for her b e l i e f that the Chinese p o l i t i c a l system v i o l a t e s the individual of his right to freedom, di g n i t y and truth. She does th i s by portraying loss. Secondly, Chen's portrayal of Xin Mei's search for meaning i s a documentation of her own journey towards renewed purpose and 125 meaning in which her reformulated purpose is stated d i r e c t l y through her characters. I suggested e a r l i e r in t h i s chapter that Chen resolves her feelings of g u i l t over leaving China by imbuing her chief protagonist, Xin Mei with the decision to remain. But t h i s conclusion in Repatr iates is problematic within the context of her Cultural Revolution s t o r i e s . Throughout the entire body of f i c t i o n discussed in t h i s thesis, Chen consistently, i f not excessively documents the shortcomings of the Chinese p o l i t i c a l system. The theme of loss and the repatriates' circumscribed existence j u s t i f i e s Xin Mei's i n i t i a l desire to leave China. Without the aid of foreshadowing or any t r a n s i t i o n , Xin Mei, after t a l k i n g to L i Yongzhong, resolves to stay for \"the sake of her children, for the sake of 49 l i f e . . \" The denouement of Repatr iates creates thematic incoherence that is not only d i f f i c u l t to reconcile but draws attention to flaws in the novel's s t r u c t u r a l i n t e g r i t y . The circumstances of China's p o l i t i c a l environment in 1973 are not convincingly detailed to provide a reason for the ideo l o g i c a l rejuvenation of either Xin Mei or L i Yongzhong. This unexplained transformation in L i Yongzhong underscores the improbability of his character. He, who had experienced devastating emotional and psychological losses and been so traumatized by his p o l i t i c a l detention that his hair had turned white, s t i l l manages to express an i n v i n c i b l e f a i t h and optimism. It becomes evident that Chen again resorts to heavy-126 handed manipulation of character as she writes in hindsight to express her views. That Chen has designated L i Yongzhong as seer i s clear from his comment such as \"The day that Deng Xiaoping is formerly in power, that w i l l be the day that Mao 50 Zedong Thought w i l l lose i t s influence.\" and his admonition to Xin Mei: \" I t doesn't matter what i t i s now, just wait and see. Before long that day w i l l come, when the universe with 51 one wipe of i t s face, w i l l bring an amazing change.\" The u n c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y optimistic ending of Repatr iates represents an only temporary l u l l in Chen's c r i t i c a l voice. Subsequent to Repatriates she again used her f i c t i o n such as Yuan Jian and other s t o r i e s to encase her indictment of the lack of human rig h t s , democracy, freedom and due process in China. 127 Notes to Chapter Four 1 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui (Repatriates), (Taipei: Lian he bao she, 1978), p. 201. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 362. 4 Chen Jo-hsi, Postscript to Chenqli Chenqwai (Fortress Beseiged), (Taipei: Shi bao chu ban gong s i , 1981), p. 223. 5 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui, p. 284. 6 Ibid. 7 I am indebted to Prof. Michael Duke for r a i s i n g t h i s idea in discussion. 8 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui, p. 201. 9 Chen Jo-hsi, \"He Shang Da San: Tan zhong gong mu qian de fa lu\"(Buddhist p r i e s t putting up an umbrella: A discussion of China's present legal system) in Shenghuo Suibi (Jottings on L i f e ) , (Taipei: Shi bao wen hua chu ban s h i , 1981), p. 179. 10 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui, p. 11 Ibid. / P- 238 . 12 Ibid. / P- 273 . 13 Ibid. / P- 239 . 14 Ibid. f P- 273. 15 Ibid. f P- 81. 16 Ibid. t P- 80. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. t PP . 80-81. 19 Ibid. / P- 284 . 20 Ibid. / P- 327 . 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. / P- 329 . 23 Ibid. r P- 336 . 128 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. / pp. 401 26 Ibid. r P- 403 . 27 Ibid. 27a Ibid . / P- 272 . 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. / P- 325. 30 Ibid. / P- 173. 31 Ibid. / P- 297 . 32 Ibid. / P- 362 . 33 Ibid. / P- 200 . 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. r P- 202. 36 Ibid. r P- 52. 37 Ibid. f P- 226. 38 Ibid. i P- 273 . 39 Ibid. r P- 230 . 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. * P- 201. 42 Ibid. t P- 123. 43 Ibid. 43a Ibid / P- 224 44 Ibid. P- 201. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Chen Jo-hsi, Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin), (Taipei: Yuan j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976), p. 120. 129 48 Chen Jo-hsi, Gui, p. 201. 49 Ibid., p. 404. 50 Ibid., p. 411. 51 Ibid., p. 416. 130 Conclus ion Chen's f i c t i o n about the Cultural Revolution r e f l e c t s her seven year experience in China during which she suffered disillusionment and a loss of f a i t h in the Marxist dream. The predominant theme throughout t h i s body of work is the losses sustained by her protagonists. These losses seem to occur in a l l aspects of l i f e including love and personal happiness, career, job fulfilment and status, d i g n i t y of the indi v i d u a l , and personal freedom. Throughout Chen's f i c t i o n her protagonists suffer disillusionment, a loss of ideals and a diminished sense of purpose. The theme of loss in Chen's f i c t i o n is a metaphor for the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. The recurrent theme of disillusionment and loss suggests that these issues are Chen's central concern. Her numerous potrayals of displaced i n t e l l e c t u a l s s u f f e r i n g profound disappointment and regret i s symbolic of her personal experience. Just as her characters grapple with their misfortune, s i m i l a r l y Chen's f i c t i o n demonstrates her e f f o r t s to comprehend her Cultural Revolutionary experience. An analysis of her work using the paradigm outlined in the study by Peter Marris on loss and grieving reveals a coherent pattern in her f i c t i o n . Chen uses the writing process as a catharsis for the tension that arises from the resolution of her g r i e f . In Marris' model, the grieving process involves the t r a n s i t i o n from an expression of loss to the abstraction and reformulation of purpose and meaning. Chen's works correspond to these stages in the following way. During the i n i t i a l stage of her g r i e f , she expresses her loss and validates her China experience in Mayor Yin. These s t o r i e s are e s s e n t i a l l y documentary in nature. In Chen's la t e r works, namely the short stories in Old Man and the novel Repatr iates, her personal resolution of g r i e f is r e f l e c t e d in that body of f i c t i o n . She i s compelled to assess her experience and to protest against the p o l i t i c a l causes of los s . This s h i f t in emphasis and purpose in Chen's f i c t i o n may be charted not only by increasingly more active stance of resistance shown by her protagonists but also by the degree of intrusive and e x p l i c i t rhetoric in her f i c t i o n . F i n a l l y , just as Xin Mei in Repatr iates acquires a sense of renewed purpose which i s to speak out against oppression and fight for human righ t s , Chen achieves the same goals by using her f i c t i o n to \"speak out\" on behalf of the Chinese. In Repatr iates Chen goes beyond strident r e i t e r a t i o n of the themes of loss detailed in previous s t o r i e s . In heavy-handed l i t e r a r y s t y l e , the novel posits the answer to the i n t e l l e c t u a l ' s chief concern: what is his role within the context of Chinese society. In supplying her solution to that question, Chen combines the conventional Chinese view of the i n t e l l e c t u a l as moral v i g i l a n t of the p o l i t i c a l system with the observation that he is more ef f e c t i v e c r i t i c i z i n g the system from abroad than within China. Chen's perception of her mission to serve China consists of using a l i t e r a r y medium to support democracy, freedom and human rights and to denounce in j u s t i c e s perpetrated by China's 132 p o l i t i c a l system. i r o n i c a l l y , as t h i s purpose becomes more overt in Chen's work i t compromises the a r t i s t i c i n t e g r i t y of her f i c t i o n . Her f i c t i o n which begins as s o c i a l documentary ends up as p o l i t i c a l polemic. In summary, Mayor Yin, Old Man and Repatriates r e f l e c t s Chen's e f f o r t to make sense of the seven years she spent in China. To borrow Simon Leys' assessment (who also chronicled the excesses of the Cultural Revolution), Chen's f i c t i o n is an e f f o r t to \"redeem through l i t e r a t u r e a heart-breaking 1 experiment in human wastefulness\". 133 Notes to Conclusion 1 Simon Leys, \"Introduction by Simon Leys\" in Chen Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin, trans. by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. xi i i . 134 Selected Bibliography Barme, Geremle and Bennett Lee, (trans.). The Wounded, New Stories of the Cultural Revolution 1 77- 178. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1979. Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of F i c t i o n . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. The Rhetor i c of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Chen, Jo-hsi. Chen Jo-hsi, z i xuan j i (Self Selected Stories by Chen Jo - h s i ) . Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976. Chen, Jo-hsi. Chenqli chenqwai (Fortress Beseiged). Tai p e i : Shi bao chu ban gong s i , 1981. Chen, Jo-hsi. Democracy Wall and the U n o f f i c i a l Journals, Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of C a l i f o r n i a , 1982. Chen, Jo-hsi. \"Ting Yun\" (Ding Yun), Chi-Chen Wang, trans. Two Wr i t e r s and the Cultural Revolut ion: Lao She and Chen Jo-hsi. Ed. George Kao. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1980. Chen/ Jo-hsi. The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Chen, Jo-hsi. Gui (Repatriates). Taipei: Lian he bao she, 1978 . Chen, Jo-hsi. Lao ren (Old Man). Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1978. Chen, Jo-hsi. \"The Last Performance\" (Zui hou ye x i ) , Timothy A. Ross and Joseph S.M. Lau, trans. Chinese Stor ies from Taiwan: 1960-1970. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. Chen, Jo-hsi. \"My Friend Ai Fen\" (Nu you Ai Fen), Richard Kent and Vivian Hsu, trans. Born of the Same Roots. Ed. Vivian Hsu. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. Chen, Jo-hsi. Shenqhuo s u i b i (Jottings on L i f e ) . Taipei: Shi bao wen hua chu ban s h i , 1981. 135 Chen, Jo-hsi. \"The Tunnel\" (Di Dao), Chi-Chen Wang, trans. Two Writers and the Cultural Revolution: Lao She and Chen Jo-hsi. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1980. Chen, Jo-hsi. Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin). Taipei: Yuan ji n g chu ban s h i , 1976. Cheng, Yung-hsiao. \"Ping j i e Chen Jo-hsi de Lao ren\" (A review of Chen Jo-hsi's Old Man), Shu ping shu mu (Book Review and Bibliography), no.65, (1978). Taipei: Shu ping shu mu zazhi chu ban she, 1978, pp. 39-45. Dittmer, Lowell and Chen, Jo-hsi. Ethics and Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of C a l i f o r n i a , 1981. Esmein, Jean. The Chinese Cultural Revolution trans, by W.J.F. Jenner. New York: Anchor Books, 1973. Freud, Sigmund. \"Mourning and Melancholia\". The Standard E d i t i o n of the Complete Psychological Works of Signmund Freud, Vol.14. London: Hogarth Press, 1953, pp. 243-258. Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of C r i t i c i s m . New York: Atheneum, 1966 . Gorer, Geoffrey. Death, Grief, and Mourn ing. New York: Arno Press, 1977. Hanan, Patrick. \"The Technique of Lu Hsun's F i c t i o n \" , Harvard Journal of A s i a t i c Studies, 1974, vol.34, pp. 53-96. Hsia, Chi-Ts'ing. \"Chen Jo-hsi de xiao shuo\" (The f i c t i o n of Chen Jo-hsi), Chen Jo-hsi z i xuan j i (Self-Selected Stories of Chen Jo-hsi). T a i p e i : Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1976 . Hsu, Kai-yu. \"A Sense of History: Reading Chen Jo-hsi's Stories\". Chinese F i c t i o n from Taiwan, Cr i t i c a l Perspect ives, ed. Jeannette L. Faurot. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1980. Kao, George, editor. Two Wr i t e r s and the Cultural Revolution: Lao She and Chen Jo-hsi. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 1980. Lau, Joseph S.M. and Timothy A. Ross, ed. Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960-1970. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. 136 Lee, Leo Ou-£an. \"Dissent Literature from the Cultural Revolution\", Chinese L i t e r a t u r e : Essays, A r t i c l e s , Reviews, vol.1, Jan.1979. Madison: CODA Press, 1979, pp. 59-79. Light, Timothy. \"Review of The Execution of Mayor Yin and other stor ies from the Great Proletar ian Cultural Revolution\", Chinese L i t e r a t u r e : Essays, A r t i c l e s , Reviews, vol.1, Jan.1979. Madison: CODA Press, 1979, pp. 131-134. Link, Perry, ed. Stubborn Weeds: Popular and Controversial Chinese Literature after the Cultural Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. Roses and Thorns, The Second Blooming of the Hundred Flowers in Chinese F i c t i o n 1979-1980. Berkeley: University of C a l i f o r n i a Press, 1984. Lu, Xun. \"New Year's S a c r i f i c e \" (Zhu fu), The Complete Stor ies of Lu Xun. Yang Xianyi and Yang, Gladys, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. McCarthy, Richard M. \"Chen Jo-hsi: Memories and Notes\", Renditions, no.10 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 90-92. Marris, Peter. Loss and Change. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974 . Ou, Yangzi. \"Mantan Chen Jo-hsi de 'Chun c h i ' \" (An Informal Discussion of Chen Jo-hsi's 'Spring is Late'). Chen Jo-h s i , Lao Ren. Taipei: Lian j i n g chu ban s h i , 1978, pp. 195-204. Pai, Hsien-yung. \"Wu tuo bang de zhuixun yu huanmie\" (Utopia: Pursuit and Disillusionment), Yin Xianzhang (Mayor Yin). T a i p e i : Yuan ji n g chu ban s h i , 1976, pp.29-42. Schoenberg, B.Mark, ed. Bereavement Counseling, A M u l t i d i s c i p l i n a r y Handbook. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980. Simonson, Harold P. Strategies in C r i t i c i s m . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971. Siu, Helen F. and Stern, Zelda, ed. Mao's Harvest. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Wakeman J r . , Frederic. \"The Real China\", The New York Review of Books, 25,no.12 (July 20,1978), pp. 9-17. Wellek, Rene. Theory of Li t e r a t u r e . New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956. 137 Yip, Wai-lim. \"Chen Jo-hsi de lu cheng\" (The Journey of Chen Jo-hsi), Yin Xianzhanq (Mayor Yin). Taipei: Yuan ji n g chu ban s h i , 1976, pp.1-27. 138 "@en ; edm:hasType "Thesis/Dissertation"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0097758"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:degreeDiscipline "Asian Studies"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:publisher "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:rights "For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use."@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Graduate"@en ; dcterms:title "Loss in Chen Jo-Hsi's fiction"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28169"@en .