The Lust, Misogyny and Allegory in Gao Xingjian’s Works

• Main Authors: Fang-YuHsu, 許芳瑜
• Other Authors: Yu-Ju Liao
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/72912084394625610417

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 中國文學系碩博士班 === 101 === Ths dissertation focuses on eroticism, misogyny and allegory in the fictions and plays of Gao Xingjian, through a psycho dynamics point of view. The scope of this research combines psycho analysis, social and cultural studies. From two perspectives, this dissertation explains the misogynistic psychology in Gao’s works: first, a biographical analysis of Gao’s obsession with, and fear of, women and mother; second, exploring the image of woman in Gao’s works from the psychoanalytic theory proposed by Adam Jukes. This dissertation is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is the introduction. Chapter Two investigates how “male intellectuals” lead the stories in Gao’s works. Based on past researches, in Gao’s short stories and plays, the male narrators tend to “dominate” the female consciousness, even categorising the female characters into “ideal” and “degrading”. This reveals a male-oriented motif in his works. Chapter Three focuses on the biographical information related to Gao and his mother. With the desire for the female breasts and bodily sensation in his works, as well as the fear and the metaphors of the female body generated from his inspirations by nature, this chapter shows a misogynistic tendency based on an Oedipus complex in Gao’s works. From the perspective of “solitude and conflict”, the latter part of this chapter argues that “solitude,” a common theme shared by many writers, is formed by the panic of separating from the mother. After reaching puberty, an anxiety is created by a conflict in viewing woman either as a “princess” or a “mother,” which leads to an inability to develop a long-term relationship with a woman. Based on the Don Juan Syndrome, Chapter Four argues that the symptomatic separation of sex and love in Gao’s male characters is the result of treating woman as a substitute for political vengeance, developing various kinds of hatred of women, and including rape and misogyny. This chapter also uses a Lacanian perspective to interpret two novels and plays of Gao. The reading shows that the different presentations of women in Gao’s works, such as prostitutes, concubines and distortions of foreign women, are the extension of author’s imaginary realm. This extension also increases the exploration of the author’s “real realm.” Chapter Five explores the evolution and awakening of the female subjects in Gao’s plays. It also discusses both the psychological and social reasons underlying female masochism: on the one hand, it is formed by man’s desire for the power to control women. On the other hand, it is an influence from woman’s mother. Gao uses woman as a “allegory” for expressing desire, as well as for self-exploration. Yet, he finally realises that all desires lead to emptiness, and that salvation can never be obtained. This is an example of Walter Benjamin’s theory of ruins, which shows the incompetence and melancholy of being a man and his eventual confrontation with death. Gao transforms Benjamin’s aesthetics of salvation, that everything will return to God, into a non-Salvationist, oriental aesthetics of ruins. It entails self-mockery, as well as the writer’s understanding of the world. Chapter Six is the conclusion, a general discussion of female images in Gao’s works.