“Contemporary World Literature” (Norton, Volume F, pp. 875-881)
“Yu Hua” (Norton, Volume F, pp. 1111-113)
“On the Road at Eighteen” by Yu Hua (Norton, Volume F, pp. 1113-1117) – reading assignment
1A: Yu Hua has become a star of China’s contemporary literary scene, combining the roles of star author and whimsical critic of China’s current politics and society. His graphic descriptions of violence are notorious; his critical views of China’s recent history under the rule of the Communist Party, well known; And his taste for the work of fate in people’s lives — rise and fall, weakness and suffering, aging, death, and misery – has produced memorable works about the vagaries of the human condition.
1B: Graphic description of violence and cruelty is a recurrent feature of Yu Hua’s novels and stories, beginning in the 1980s. He tells us that at the time he was plagued by nightmares and the memory of witnessing an execution at close range during the Cultural Revolution, when he saw a victim’s head blown open by a bullet. In To Live, he depicts the violence of China’s tragic recent history, the brutality of political change, human greed, and willful cruelty, but also human helplessness gnawing bite by bite at the lives of one man and his family.
1C: In “On the Road at Eighteen,” first published in 1986, we see flashes of this kind of brutality as well: we have to watch as our young, idealistic protagonist is severely beaten and humiliated – but the real cruelty lies in the outrageous behavior of the bystanders. The story puts us in the shoes of an eighteen-year-old whose father sends him off into the wide world on the birthday marking the beginning of his adult life. The fresh gaze of our enthusiastic protagonist on a world full of excitement and irresistible novelty is contagious. We are venturing out with him into his very real “dream world,” where everything – humans, mountains, trucks – is full of life. The bliss of hungering for new experiences tinges every perception; only an increasing worry over finding a new place to stay, “a home,” distracts the young man from his happiness. He does finally find a place to stay the night, but not where and how the reader would expect it.
There are several different classic or “archetypal” story-patterns that we might see aspects of in “On the Road at Eighteen.” One is the pattern of the “coming-of-age” story, the story of a child becoming an adult. Another is the pattern of the “bildungsroman” or “adventure of education,” the story of a “student” going out in the world and learning from the “school” of life experience. A third is the story of the “hero’s journey” or “quest romance,” the same basic adventure of “coming of age” as in the “bildungsroman,” but this time with particular emphasis on the dangers the world contains and the need for heroic virtues like courage, wisdom, justice, and patience in overcoming those. In response to Excerpts 1A, 1B, and IC, consider the ways in which “On the Road at Eighteen” qualifies as a “coming of age” story, a “bildungsroman,” and/or a “hero’s journey” / “quest romance.”
2: The story moves us through an archetypal landscape with vaguely surreal characters. Although this is the story of a road trip, nobody seems to know or care about where they are going. The strange, unexplained actions of these characters suggest an allegorical reading of the story as a parable of Chinese society in the unruly 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping, China’s new political leader, introduced economic reforms that launched China on the path toward its current status as a global economic powerhouse. Despite the spirit of Deng Xiaoping’s newly implemented “Four Modernizations” the old rhetoric of the socialist revolution remained, while a new economically privileged class emerged that robbed the peasants and simple folk of the fruits of their labor. Discontentment with the new political and social conditions eventually erupted in the pro-democracy movement in June 1989, three years after the publication of this story. The red backpack of socialist idealism, a truck driver who doesn’t care about the theft of his free food and is actually a thief himself, an endless road with, in the end, a wrecked and bleeding truck as a new “home” – Yu Hua’s suggestive narrative does not deliver any of this as an explicit allegory. And yet, the enthusiastic reception of this story by the Chinese reading public at the time suggests that it struck a chord and encouraged a political reading. Who was it that stole the idealism of the Chinese people?
In response to Excerpt 2, consider the ways that the text of “On the Road at Eighteen” gave grounds for Chinese readers in the 1980’s to interpret the story as an “archetypal” and “surreal” (or dream-like) “parable” or “allegory” about their country’s contemporary culture, society, and politics in the years leading up to the protests at Tiananman Square in 1980. This exploration will entail a definition of what a “parable” is and what an “allegory” is. It will also entail consideration of how the classic story patterns discussed in Excerpt 2 are applied by “On the Road at Eighteen” to the specific details of Chinese history at a particular point in time. – study guide
