EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Modern Literature 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 58 Nikitina Alexandra (Saint Petersburg State University) Madonna and Child: the Image of Mother in Mo Yan’s Novel “Big Breasts andWide Hips” Key words: modern Chinese literature, Mo Yan, Big Breasts andWide Hips, image of mother, female images This paper examines the main character of the novel “Big Breasts andWide Hips” (1995) by Chinese writer, Mo Yan, a 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”. The novel is a fascinating mixture of realistic details and fantasies, brutality and loftiness, Christian andChinese traditional beliefs, heroic deeds and sinful passions. In the genre of historical epic, covering China’s history from late 1930s to early 1990s, Mo Yan tells a life story of Shangguan Lu full of sufferings. She gives birth to nine children whose life tragedies reflect the hardships of Chinese people in the 20th century. Only one child stays alive in the end, her only son Shangguan Jintong (Golden Boy) born from a Christian mission- ary and who is maniacally obsessed with female breasts. Mo Yan dedicated his novel to the spirit of his mother and stated that it had been written for all mothers on earth. Despite her passions, Shangguan Lu is depicted as the Great Mother whose best human virtues — endless love, devotion to her children, kindness, selflessness, dignity, wisdom, self-sacrifice — reminds us of a holy image of Madonna. She not only breast-feeds and brings up her own children, but also raises several children of her adventurous daughters. MoYan shows that in a male- oriented traditional Chinese society it is a woman who embodies vital power and survives through hard times to become a symbol of perseverance. In this sense, the novel can be regarded as a hymn to a woman and a mother. Rampolla Giulia (University of Naples ) From Hedonism to Realistic Representation: Female Characters in Chinese New Urban Fiction Key words: urban fiction, female characters, subaltern classes, women writers, 21st century fiction Since the beginning of 21st century, the centre of attention of Chinese writers has shifted to the repre- sentation of real life of common people; intellectuals have shown an increasing concern for lower classes conditions and for the effects of the economical transformations on the individual. The new social patterns, which involve a radical change in the traditional roles of women and in the way they perceive their own identity, become a source of literary inspiration. Consequently, characters who reflect Chinese contempo- rary background come to life into fictional works.This is evident in the literary representation of the fast, steady developing Chinese metropolises, where people naturally find a larger space for self expression. Many fictional authors, especially women, tend now to avoid the frivolous representation of female char- acters, distinctive of many novels of the 90’s, and describe women in search of their identity, workers or migrant girls who move to the city craving for a better future, middle class women who strive to build up a career, and other apparently marginal city dwellers. These characters are endowed with a strong aware- ness of their female gender identity, of nowadays problems, of the way society influences their choices or become aware of their own condition after a deep crisis or difficult personal experiences. Female body is not depicted as a commercial product, but it appears as an exploited, suffering or at least functional body, sometimes even described as the symbolic place where social contradictions experienced by women take shape. I will discuss the relation between 21st century cultural and social configuration and the emergence of a new kind of female characters in Chinese literature, especially focusing on new urban fiction. I will first discuss the topic from a theoretical perspective and then analyze some novels and short stories from contemporary female writers, born between the end of the 50’s and 70’s,as a concrete example. Rodionov Alexey (St. Petersburg State University) Issue of National Character in the LiteraryWorks of Lao She Key words: Lao She, national character, psychology of Chinese people, modern literature, May Forth writers