3.

2 The Wasteland of Manchuria

The Field of Life and Death
Jiaqi Yao
1.27.2021

2021-01-27 UBC ASIA 351- Jiaqi Yao 1

Today
• Instructions and tips of analytical essay will be posted this weekend.
• Choose to analyze one of the literary texts we have read or are going to read
in this course.
• Chinese female writers: Xiao Hong, Ding Ling, and Zhang Ailing
• The background of The Field of Life and Death
• Group Discussion: Characters

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 Xiao Hong, Ding Ling, and Zhang Ailing

Left: Xiao 2021-01-27

Hong Right: Ding Ling (1938) UBCDing Ling
ASIA 351- Jiaqi Yao Zhang Ailing and Li Xianglan
3 (1943)
The Field of Life and Death
• Xiao Hong’s debut novel written in Qingdao
• First two chapters published in Harbin first
• Standalone version was published in
semiunderground Slave Series (奴隶丛书) in
Shanghai.
• Xiao Jun 萧军 Village in August 八月的乡村
• Ye Zi 叶紫 Harvest 丰收
• Xiao Hong designs the cover by herself The Field of Life and Death (1934)

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Time
• Chapter 1 Summer–Wheat threshing (June)
• Chapter 2 Summer-Autumn–Sex
• Tomatoes ripening p.17
• The Mid-Autumn Festival now past, the fields had become a bleak and
desolate land. P.27
• Chapter 3 Autumn–Death
• The late-autumn fields stretched out like cold, tanned hides. P.30
• Chapter 4 Winter–Death
• The dead were dead, and the living still had to plan how to stay alive. In
winter, the women made ready the summer clothes; the men started
scheduling the next year's crops. P.41
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Time
• Chapter 5 Spring–Growth or not?
• Enter the city
• Chapter 6 Summer-Reproduction
• War air rose from the haystack behind the house. The whole village was flooded with
sunshine; stalks of grain swayed in the gentle breezes. Summer had returned and
with it the leaves on the trees. P.52
• Chapter 7 Summer-Death (May 五月节)
• The self-poisoning of Mother Wang and the tragic death of Little Golden Bough.
• Chapter 8 Summer–Life (June)
• Chapter 9 Summer–Death
• From dawn till dusk clods of mosquitoes and fog filled the sky.

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Group Discussion
• Each group is assigned to analyze one or more characters:
• Group 1-2: Old Mother Wang
• Group 3-4: Golden Bough
• Group 5: Yueh-Ying and other wives (your choices)
• Group 6: Men: Chao San, Tunnel Legs, P’ing, Two-and-a-Half Li, Ch’eng-yeh
(your choices)
• Please answer the following questions:
1. How are their images, especially their bodies, depicted? Does the author
associate any animals with them? How does it work?
2. Do they show their agency and subjectivity in village life? Please provide
some examples to support your opinions.
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Reference
• Liu, Lydia He. Translingual Practice Literature, National Culture and
Translated Modernity - China, 1900-1937. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1999.
• Xiao, Hong. The Field of Life and Death and Tales of Hulan River: Two
Novels. Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Ellen Yeung.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
• Dooling, Amy D. “Xiao Hong’s Field of Life and Death.” In The
Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature. Ed. Kirk A.
Denton. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016: 189-194.

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