Chinese 503 (OSU)

Mao Dun (1896-1981)

I. Intro:

-leading literary critic of the May Fourth period, founding member of the Wenxue yanjiu hui (Literary Research Association), later one of the most important novelists on the progressive front
-his work most obviously associated with realism

II. Biography (1896-1981)
A. early period

-Born Zhejiang in 1896 [notice the unbalanced number of modern writers coming from the core of Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu: Yu Dafu, Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ye Shaojun, Zhang Tianyi...)
-1910 attends middle school in Hangzhou
-1913 attends Peking University prep school (Beida yuke)

B. literary career begins

-1916 works for Shanghai Commercial press, participates in May Fourth movement
-1920 with Zheng Zhenduo, Ye Shengtao... founds the Literary Research Association; edits Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao), leading journal that had, until he changed the editorial policy, published popular entertainment fiction
-period of literary criticism, many articles introducing foreign literature, attacking Butterfly fiction, promoting Naturalism...

C. revolutionary work

-had been a founding member of the CCP in 1921
-1926 quits editorial work to join revolutionary KMT as propaganda secretary, teaches at the Central Military School (Wuhan)
-edits leftist Hankou Daily
-1927 KMT turns on leftist element
-writes articles lambasting Chiang Kai-shek and the purge
-fears for life, escapes to Guling, falls ill, flees to Shanghai

D. fictional career

-begins in 1928 in Shanghai writes trilogy Eclipse (Shi), according to Chen Yu-shih an allegory of the revolutionary movement
-criticized by Creationists and Sun Society for being a backward, bourgeois intellectual of the May Fourth
-goes to Japan for rest
-writes two famous articles "On Reading Ni Huanzhi" (See Denton 1996); and "From Guling to Tokyo" in which he counterattacks the radicals and maintains a viable role for realism
-1930 returns to Shanghai, helps set up League of Leftist Writers, a semi-underground literary organization formed with the CCP
-after 1930 writes his major works
-short story trilogy, Spring Silkworms;
-Midnight, most famous novel published

E. War period

-1938 joins Resist the Enemy Association (Kangdi xiehui)
-edits Wenyi zhendi, one of the principal journals of the war period
-1939 teaches in Lanzhou (Xinjiang) for a year
-1940 goes to Yanan and then on to Chongqing, Hong Kong and Guilin
-1946-47 visits the Soviet Union

F. Bureaucrat in PRC

-1949 became Minister of Culture and chief editor of People's Literature -wrote no literary works in this period
-1981 died

"Spring Silkworms" by Mao Dun

Introduction:

Let's look at the 30s from the point of view of literary creations. Generally speaking, it would seem that the Creationist call for "revolutionary literature" (literary works which speak for the proletariat, and lead the masses to revolution) did not appear. The committment of writers in the 30s to realism (to portraying observed reality) was stronger than their desire to promote an idealized version of reality for the promotion of the revolutionary cause. This type of idealization of positive heroes doesn't occur until the literature of the Anti-Japanese War, especially in Yanan. Realism is partly a response to growing terrorism, conservatism, corruption and moral weakness of the KMT. Though the May Fourth belief in cultural enlightenment (which sees old consciousness as the impediment to social transformation) is never dropped entirely, we do sense in the writing of this period a focusing in on the material (economic), social and historical causes of oppression. In the thirties there emerges from the League of Left-wing Writers, which dominated the literary scene, two principal types of creative fictio, both of which saw a role in the political and social transformation of China. We might call Mao Dun's form of realism exemplified in "Spring Silkworms", critical realism, a tradition initiated by Lu Xun and Ye Shengtao. This type of realism is a critical strategy of demystification of accepted values and desires. The authorial voice is suppressed and the illusion of objectivity is forefronted.

Significance of this story?

-one of the most important stories to treat peasant themes and thus mark a move away from bourgeois intellectuals as fictional subject matter
-topical reality (ie. effects on countryside of Japanese attack on Shanghai, 1932; world depression)
-maturation of vernacular literary language (lively description, fresh metaphors, dropping of foreign terms, solidifying of syntactic forms, moving away from more classical type language we see in Lu Xun
-tragic vision: catharsis in tragedy (and yet there is a danger that this catharsis will merely purge feelings of guilt or shame toward social inequities), therefore the reader must be brought into the process of "demystification"

Questions

1. What are the difference between "Spring Silkworms" and earlier May Fourth stories like Yu Dafu's "Sinking"? What kind of change in the cultural/intellectual/political scene does this represent?

2.Yet, like "Sinking", consciousness is still a concern or part of the story. How? What narrrative techniques are used to portray mind? 3.What kind of mind is it? Is it divided against itself like the other stories?

3.What is the effect of the story on the reader of being drawn into Old Tongbao's mind? How does this narrative form in the story help to convey meaning?

5.Can we "deconstruct" this reading, that is derive from the story a meaning that seems at odds with the story's more obvious "intended" meaning?

6. What kind of images and symbols are used in the story? Are these significant? What about the silkworms themselves?

7. What is the role of the youngest son in the story?