Fall of the Father: On Literary Influence of Chen Yingzhen’s Early Writing (1959-1965) from Lu Xun to Wang Anyi

Rojas, Carlos

Wang, Chenyan

2024-06-06T13:50:16Z

2024-06-06T13:50:16Z

2024

East Asian Studies

This thesis examines the profound literary influence of Taiwanese writer Chen Yingzhen’s early writing, spanning from 1959 to 1965. It explores his journey from initially embracing the legacy of Lu Xun to the reciprocal impact of his collaboration with fellow writer Wei Tiancong, and ultimately, to his recognition by Wang Anyi. By situating Chen within the intricate literary landscape, conducting three comparative analyses of novellas that have adaptations and intertextual relationships, and focusing on the motif of the "fall of the father," both within the texts and in broader contexts, the thesis argues that:Chen Yingzhen’s early novels, characterized by their originality, rawness, and discernible traces of learning, reveal a more obvious adaptation of Lu Xun’s works alongside a closer reflection of his childhood. Chen’s engagement with Lu Xun commenced with his father’s reverence for this literary giant, but it is the shared experience of losing their fathers at an early age that forged a unique emotional resonance and literary bond between the two. Furthermore, Chen’s experience of dual fatherhood—both biological and adoptive—enabled him to continue Lu Xun’s pioneering narratives of intellectuals returning to their hometowns, albeit with a exploration the familial traumas and identity confusion in the younger generation, rather than the broader modernist dilemma. Also, the amalgamation of influences from his three fathers—in reality, and literature—shaped Chen’s distinctive literary and ideological framework, setting him apart from his contemporaries. While he introduced Western modernism to Taiwan and absorbed techniques from it, he retained elements of the May Fourth tradition and remained rooted in realistic concern, neither being swallowed by nihilism nor deviating from leftist aspiration. Moreover, Chen Yingzhen himself emerged as a literary father figure, serving as an exemplar or ideal with answers for the subsequent generation of authors from both sides of the trait. It is crucial to acknowledge that despite serving as a literary beacon for the emerging intellectual youth, Chen’s status as a literary father was not immune to the barriers of intergenerational, cultural, or temporal disconnects, due to the lack of understanding or inability to communicate. These divides make his figure hardly avoid being detached from the obscuration of imagination or even prejudice, and subjective projection.

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31065

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Asian literature

Chen Yingzhen

Father Figuration

Literary Influence

Taiwan Literature

Fall of the Father: On Literary Influence of Chen Yingzhen’s Early Writing (1959-1965) from Lu Xun to Wang Anyi

Master's thesis