动作的英文Neohelicon(2009)36:397–410
DOI10.1007/s11059-009-0009-1
Poetic wolves and environmental imagination: reprentations of wolf in recent Chine literature Chengzhou He
Published online:29September2009
ÓAkade´miai Kiado´,Budapest,Hungary2009
Abstract During the last decade or so,the literary writings that portray the lives of the wolves and their relationship with the humans sprouted and prospered in China.The wolf writings all give very vivid and appealing portraits of wolves,their wild existence,their character,their relationship with men,and their role in the ecosystem.They have shaped our understanding of and attitudes towards animals and nature,which is of great value to the ongoing building of ecological civilization in China as well as in the world.In general, the Chine wolf literature has inevitably been influenced and inspired by the long and rich traditions of the wolf myths and literature in the West,particularly tho works of Jack London,Rudyard Kipling and other Western writers since the end of the19th century. 微信二维码生成
With due attention paid to the influence of the Western wolf literature,this essay will mainly analyze the three most important Chine wolf novels—The Wolf Child,Remem-bering Wolves and The Wolf Totem,both parately and with reference to one another.It argues that the reprentations of wolves in them subvert the stereotypical hostile images of wolf in traditional Chine culture,bring about fresh reflections on the cultural and spiritual symptoms of(post)modernity and globalization,andfinally lead to a growing ecological consciousness and the call for balance between humans and nonhumans. Keywords WolfÁEnvironmentÁChine literatureÁEcological civilization
In the Chine literaryfield at the turn of the21st century,the literary writings that portray the lives of the wolves and their relationship with the humans sprouted and prospered. Among the most popular wolf novels are Huainian lang(Remembering Wolves,2000)by Jia Pingwa,Damo langhai(The Wolf Child in the Dert,2001)by Guo Xuebo,Lang tuteng (Wolf Totem,2004)by Jiang Rong;‘‘Yi shamo wei Beijing de ren yu lang’’(Man and Wolf against the Background of the Dert)by Chi Li and‘‘Lang xing cheng shuang’’(Wolves in Pair)by Deng Yiguang are among the best known short stories about the wolf.In addition, there have been a number of Chine translations of foreign wolf writings,such as The Call C.He(&)
School of Foreign Studies,Nanjing University,Nanjing210093,People’s Republic of China
e-mail:chengzhou@nju.edu
398 C.He of the Wild by Jack London,Wolf and Child by Rudyard Kipling and Surviving with Wolves by Mischa Defonca.With the collective memory about the wolf wavering in the works, the wolves in tho recent Chine writings are largely portrayed in an unusually positive and appreciating manner as their images are endowed with the writers’personal emotions, environmental imagination and cultural reflections.Having already developed into a cul-tural phenomenon in China,the rewritings of wolf have transcended both history and reality, reflecting our deep concern with the natural environment and our unyielding expectations for the balance between the human and the nonhuman in the ecosystem.
Taking an earth-centered approach to literary studies,ecocriticism is mainly devoted to the explorations of the value and effects that literary writings may have on our attitudes towards nature and animals.In his book Poetic Animals and Animal Souls,Randy Mala-mud says,‘‘I will propo a defen of literary value,and not just on cerebral or intellectual merits,but as a springboard for ethical replenishment:a platform for real-world improvements of our modes of engaging with nature.’’1In his review on Malamud’s book, Scott Slovic further elaborates that without good literature that acknowledges and cele-brates animals with‘‘authenticity,complexity and nobility,’’we’ll be gravely cha
llenged in our capacity to assume a healthy ethical stance toward the animals.2But the environmental literature is actually not so much concerned with the real nature as with the imagined one. In Big Holy Dog:The Wolf in North American Literature,Sean Kipling Robisch says,‘‘There is a vein that runs through environmental writing,one concerned with how we humans think of nature,how we imagine it,dream it.’’3In both Chine and Western wolf writings,the wolf is ud allegorically,that is,to engage readers in a collective imagination about wolf and environment.In Writing for the Endangered World,Lawrence Buell thinks that there are at least four kinds of engagement that the readers of environmental writings may have with the world.‘‘They may connect readers with others’experience,suffering, pain:that of nonhumans as well as humans.They may reconnect readers with places they have been and nd them where they would otherwi never physically go.They may direct thought toward alternative futures.And they may affect one’s caring for the physical world:make it feel more or less precious or endangered or disposable.’’4So far as the readers of the recent Chine wolf literature are concerned,the near extinction of wolves in the real world has made them become extremely curious about and attentive of what has happened and is happening to the wolves in the wilderness.
The recent Chine wolf writings all give very vivid and appealing portraits of wolves, their wild exist
ence,their character,their relationship with men,and their role in the ecosystem.Tho writings have shaped our understanding of and attitudes towards animals and nature,which is of great value to the ongoing building of ecological civilization in China and in the world.Lawrence Buell succinctly points out,‘‘The success of all envi-ronmentalist effortsfinally hinges not on‘some highly developed technology,or some arcane new science’but on‘a state of mind’:on attitudes,feelings,images,narratives.’’5In 1Malamud,R.(2003).Poetic animals and animal souls(p.19).New York:Palgrave Macmillan.
2See Slovic,S.(2008).Doing away to think:Engagement,retreat,and ecocritical responsibility(p.110). Reno:University of Nevada Press.
3Robisch,S.K.(1998).Big holy dog:Big Holy Dog:The Wolf in North American Literature.PhD disrtation,Purdue University(p.3).
4Buell,L.(2001).Writing for the endangered world(p.2).Cambridge:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
5Buell,L.(2001).Writing for the endangered world(p.1).Cambridge:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
游戏道具Poetic wolves and environmental imagination399 general,the Chine wolf novelsflourishing from the late1990s have inevitably been influenced and inspired by the long and rich traditions of the wolf myths and writings in the US and Europe,particularly tho works of Jack London,Rudyard Kipling and other writers since the end of the19th century.With due attention paid to the influence of the Western wolf literature,this essay will mainly analyze the three most important Chine wolf novels—The Wolf Child,Remembering Wolves and Wolf Totem,both parately and with reference to one another.It argues that the reprentations of wolves in them subvert the stereotypical hostile images of wolf in traditional Chine culture,bring about fresh reflections on the cultural and spiritual symptoms of(post)modernity and globalization, andfinally lead to a growing ecological consciousness and the call for balance between humans and nonhumans.
The subversion of hostility toward wolf
In China the wolf has been traditionally regarded as the enemy of man and defined as a ferocious and greedy species.Famous for the culture of dragon,the Chine have a deep-rooted complex of‘‘hating wolf’’of which‘‘Zhongshan lang’’(A Tale of the Wolf of Zhongshan)6is a typical example.As it is known,the cultural images of animals have usually undergone dramatic changes and become gradually stabilized in the process of social and cultural development.In China,especially with the Ha
刘秀简介n people,wolves never became the cultural‘‘heroes.’’Instead,they have long since been identified as the images of evil.In the limited records and writings about the wolf in Chine,a dominant picture is to regard wolf as greedy,ungrateful and vicious.Why have there been rather so few writings about wolf in Chine?How did wolf become demonized?The questions can find answers in the unique history of social development in China.In comparison with Europe,the era of hunting ended much earlier here,which means China has a much longer history and tradition of agricultural cultivation.One important feature of the agricultural society is the alienation of animal and animality.Centred on the human‘‘ethics,’’the Chine culture was turning further and further away from the animal world.Over the history,the number of wolves dwindled gradually until they virtually disappeared in most parts of China throughout the20th century.
A few wolf stories have been pasd down,which usually describe the victory of wi and brave men over foolish and greedy wolves.Therefore,most people have kept in their mind a stereotyped evil image of the wolf.At the beginning of the20th century,as China experienced many humiliating defeats under some aggressive Western powers and its neighbor Japan,there had been repeated calls among the intellectuals for learning from the West,which made way for the spreading of western cultures and literatures in China.As a foreign,alien but vital image in Western culture,the wol
f fascinated many Chine,some of whom began to reexamine the existing cultural stereotypes of wolves.On the deeper level,the Western wolf images were brought in and praid in order to break down the centuries-old feudal ideas of passivity and obedience that had confined the minds of Chine people and suppresd their natural desires and feelings.
In fact,the wolf culture in Europe and North America has also undergone great changes in history.In the North American myths of the Indian tribes,wolf was worshipped as the 6The story about an ungrateful wolf began to spread from the early16th century in China.For centuries this story has appeared in multiple literary forms such as classical tales,drama and illustrations in the Chine tradition.‘‘The wolf of Zhongshan’’has been a Chine term commonly ud to refer to ingrates.
400 C.He hero or god.In the ancient European myths,the story of the mother-wolf is well-known among the Romans.Worshipping wolf as their god,the Romans erected a statue for the mother-wolf at the temple on Capitoline Hill.The two children nursing from the mother wolf were said to be the Roman ancestors,Romulus and Remus.In the Scandinavian myths, there are many stories about the wolf-god Loki.In all the ancient myths there are found the cultural archetypes for the worship of wolf.However,as religion was becoming the dominant force in the cultural and spiritual lives of the Europeans,the hero-images of the wolves were gradually replaced by the evil ones.Instead of being
卫夫人简介worshipped,wolves became people’s enemies and were further demonized particularly during the European middle ages.One typical example is the Aesop fable‘‘Wolf and the Little Sheep.’’It was not until the European renaissance that the benevolent and vigorous images of wolves reentered the European cultural life.The reappearance of the mother wolf in Dante’s The Divine Comedy marked a return in the people’s attention on body,vitality and instinctive desires. After the invigorating efforts of romanticism in the18th century,the vigorous and powerful images of wolves began to spread widely and became the mainstream reprentations of wolves in Europe.In the19th century and early20th century,particularly in the wolf writings of Kipling,Seton and Jack London,wolves were embodied with such admirable human characteristics as compassion,collectivism,and perverance.After the Western wolf literature and culture were introduced into China in the early20th century,they have come to play an important role in the dramatic turn of the Chine reprentations of wolves.
It is worth pointing out that the so-called hostility towards wolves in traditional Chine culture is a phenomenon mainly limited to the Han people.Among the ethnic minorities in the northern regions of China the worship for wolf is deep-rooted,which can be traced in the myths and legends from their ancestors.Living a wandering and incure life on the grassland,their ancestors had a deep-felt fear for the wolves that directly threatened their existence,while at the same time they admired and respe
cted wolves for their bravery and perverance.There are a number of written records of the ancient myths and legends in which wolves became the ancestors of such ethnic nationalities as Xiongnu,Turkut and Mongolia.The Mongols,for example,have thought that they were the descendents of the ‘‘grey wolves.’’The culture of wolf totem is the common heritage of the tribes or tribe associations in the Northern grassland of China.In this n,the novel Wolf Totem is a contemporary reconstruction of the wolf worship,which,I think,is the soul of that novel.
As above-mentioned,the direct influence on the recent wolf literature in China mainly came from Jack London,Kipling and other popular Western wolf writings in the19th and 20th centuries,of which Jack London’s wolf novels have been most widely read.In the19th century,after Jack London suffered the grim northern environment and sought compan-ionship from the wild but not-unwi wolves,he made an immortal ode for the omniscience and sacredness of the wolves,describing their survival in and conquest of the nature.The Call of the Wild(1903)is no doubt his masterpiece.As an ideal symbol of the conquest of nature,Buck has become the hero of the industrialization era.Bad on the story of the Buck the dog as the protagonist,London looks critically at the harsh and cruel world in which men are tortured in their greed for fame and fortune.‘‘Tracing the reversion of a domesticated dog to a savage wolf-beast in the primitive Yukon,London manages in fact to address
a t of‘unnatural’cultural issues in The Call of the Wild:vocational training,the quest for social approval via diligent work,the material conditions of literary production,and the meaning of fame.’’7Together with his other animal novel White Fang(1906),The Call of the Wild has inspired numerous authors’works,including Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem.
7Auerbach,J.(1995).Congested mails:Buck and Jack’s call.American Literature,67(1),52.
Poetic wolves and environmental imagination401 Right before Jack London,there had already been two important literaryfigures who wrote stories about wolves and their relationship with men.Rudyard Kipling,the Nobel Laureate in Literature in1907,wrote interesting stories about wolves in The Jungle Book (1893),which have been enjoyed by both adults and children worldwide.The Jungle Book contains the adventures of Mowgli,a young boy raid by wolves and other animals in the jungles of Central India.Mowgli is educated in the ways of the jungle by his animal friends and the novel contains vivid portrait of his happy life together with his father wolf and mother wolf.Ernest Thompson Seton(1860–1946),a Scots-Canadian,wrote Wild Animals I have Known(1898),which was translated and became a favorite of many Chine readers.One of the stories is about afierce wolf dying of a broken heart at the loss of his freedom and the loss of a beloved mate.Never Cry Wolf is a book by the Canadian author Farley Mowat,first published in1963.It was adapted into a moderately s
uccessful movie of the same name in1983.The story is prented as afirst-person narrative of Mowat’s rearch into the nature of the Arctic Wolf.In1997,the Belgian writer,Mischa Defonca, published Survivre avec les loups(Surviving with Wolves),her single novel but a shrilling one in Europe and America.In the memoirs about the authorial childhood,the heroine,a ven-year-old Jewish girl,decided to go andfind her parents by herlf after they were taken away by the Nazi soldiers.In the tramping four years,she had to go through the forests to avoid being caught.In the cold wilderness,the hungry girl was sometimes taken home by the wolves and fed on their care and concern.The sharp contrast between the humanity of wolves and the ferocity of men became a grim test upon her later return to the human world from the vagrant life.
Under the influence of the Western wolf literature,there appeared more and more Chine novels and short stories about wolf in the last decades.In the short story‘‘Wolves in Pair’’by Deng Yiguang,the he-wolf falls into an abandoned well,and his mate does everything she can to help him out.Before he manages to escape,he is discovered by two youths and shot dead,but the she-wolf does not leave.Eventually she too dies in the well together with the dead he-wolf.Obviously,the sad wolf story,which is reminiscent of Seton’s wolf tragedy,is ud to reflect on the lives of us human beings,on our love and humanity at large.The Mongolian writer Guo Xuebo(b.1948)is famous for his
writings on wolves on the Gobi dert.His collection of stories titled Sha Lang(Dert Wolves) were translated into English,French and other foreign languages,and won important literary prizes in China.In one of the short stories‘‘Lang de jiazu’’(Wolf Family),the wolves are portrayed as loving and sincere animals that support and care for each other.In another short story‘‘Mu Lang’’(Mother Wolf),there is a she-wolf,who after the death of her child pours all her love on a human child.When the child falls into the iced river,the mother-wolf jumps into it without hesitation to save him.After struggling in vain,they die together in the icy water.单位工作鉴定
The Wolf Child in the Dert,Guo’s literary masterpiece,won him thefirst national ‘‘Ecological and Environmental Literary Prize’’and the‘‘Steed Prize’’for the National Ethnic Literature.In the novel,hunters in‘‘my’’village kill the father wolf and two wolf cubs.‘‘I’’cretly takes the third wolf cub home out of sympathy,but‘‘my’’baby brother is stolen by the anxious mother wolf hiding near the village.Wolves and menfight for their own babies.The wolf child isfinally brought back to the village,but he is unable to forget the wolf mother feeding him.In the end,as it becomes impossible for him to get adapted to the estranged human society,he desperately arches for the agent-mother and dies beside the she-wolf at her last gasp.‘‘The exchange of roles,the display of human nature and that of wolves,the breakdown and rearrangement of the two families,all the show the irreconcilable contradiction between the tolerant simplicity of nature and the evil
402 C.He greediness of man,and foreground the character and maternal love of the wolf.On the dreamlike Horqin grassland,the tragic story of the desperate men and wolves constitutes the literary masterpiece of the grassland culture.’’8
The Wolf Child reminds the readers of the mother-child love in White Fang by Jack London.In the latter,the life-and-death story of mother wolf and her son is deeply moving, which is very critical of the savageness of man.Similarly,the narration on human cruelty and lfishness in The Wolf Child also cross-examines the readers’souls.Just as Fan Gang points out,‘‘what is more important and what distinguishes this work from other works is not only its imagination but also the grand tragedy,fairy tale and allegory.’’9The strong environmental consciousness in The Wolf Child features the description of the startling extinction of wolves and growing dertification of grassland.The narrator anxiously cries,‘‘Animals have almost been wiped out by us civilized people.Only this unyielding she-wolf is left in the dert.’’‘‘Sooner or later bigger animals will come and eat us human animals.’’10
New reflections on our attitudes toward the non-human animals are esntial to ecoc-riticism.In Poetic Animals and Animal Souls,Malamud says:‘‘The relationship between people and nonhuman animals is codified in social culture as hierarchical and funda-mentally impermeable:we are here and
they are out there.People are alienated from animals,with only token points of connection that are so heavily conscribed and artificial as to hinder any significant experienced association across the divide.’’11In the West,Bible is now blamed for causing the Western prejudiced attitudes toward animals and nature.‘‘And God said,let us make man in our image,after our likeness;and let them have dominion over thefish of the a,and over the fowl of the air,and over the cattle,and over all the earth,and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth….’’(Genesis 1:pp.26–28)In the Christian culture,nature and animals were marginalized.From the beginning,Malamud says,God authorizes‘‘an ecologically perver hubris.’’12 Like other animals,wolves have been‘‘the other,’’in contrast with which we define humanity and human character.In opposition to the binary,simplistic division of animals and people,Jeremy Bentham(1748–1832)claims that the capacity to feel pain,not the power of reason,entitles a being to moral consideration.Later,Peter Singer gives the label ‘‘speciesism’’to the irrational prejudice that Bentham identified as the basis of our different treatment of animals and humans.13The boundary between humans and animals is thought to be arbitrary and,moreover,irrelevant,since we share with animals a capacity for suffering and love.The increasing paration of people and animals is thought to be one undesirable byproduct of the social development.In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud describes a civilized state as one in which‘‘wild and dangerous animals have been exterminated.’’14Alan Bleakley also thinks that‘‘the m
ore civilized the society 8Li,M.(2005).Lang de yishu yu ren de zhexue(The Art of Wolf and the Philosophy of Man).Journal of Lanzhou Jiaotong University,24(2),16.Translations are all mine if not indicated.
9Fan,G.(2001)Ren bian lang bi lang chiren geng kebei(Man Turning into Wolf Is Wor Than Wolf Eating Man).Lvye(Green Leaves),6,56.
10Guo,X.(2001).Damo Langhai[The Wolf Child in the Dert](pp.260–261).Beijing:Press of China Federation of Literature and Art.
少林八段锦
11Malamud,p.3.
12Ibid.,p.3.
13See Garrard,G.(2004).Ecocriticism(p.136).London:Routledge.
愉快的交换夫妇14Quoted in Malamud,p.4.
