Revenge I--Interpretation

Exploring Lu Xun’s REVENGE I

Reading Club Session 1

Huiwen (Helen) Zhang[1]

The Title

What does the title remind you of? What (personal and collective) memories are evoked?

In the world of Lu Xun: The Loner, Diary of A Madman, Dead Fire, Epitaph, The Wanderer, etc. 

Other world literature/cinema on “Revenge”

What does the title promise? What expectations are encouraged?

Blood, violation, trauma, resentment, justice, desire, patience, insanity, sacrifice, reward, regret, irreversibility, nothingness, etc.

What does the word “revenge” almost inevitably involve?

A back story that introduces and establishes a binary relation, e.g. between victims and criminals (the slaughtered vs. the slaughterer)

How are you prompted to envision the story before moving to the first line?

A narrative response to the multiple question: Who seeks what type of “revenge” on whom, for what, through what ways, and with what consequences?

Paragraph 1

Cut: the narrator opens the text with a cut that implies—or even illustrates—a surgery.

Is this a surgery of human body or human nature or both?

Twist: the pseudo-scientific opening is immediately followed by a revelation of the fictional nature through the image of “silkworms climbing up a wall.”

Is the reader exposed to (and hence compelled to examine) a section of human body or a fragment of human nature?

Are the associations stimulated by “silkworms” positive, negative, or neutral?

Why is the word “dense” repeated? In what respect is “density” relevant?

Presence & absence: 3 often negatively-connotated verbs, “bewitch, incite, and tug,” address the present interaction; 3 often positively-connotated verbs, “cuddle, kiss, embrace,” address the absent interaction.

Why do silkworms “with all their might” desire?

Why can they not “cuddle, kiss, embrace?”

(Self-)Deceptive affection? Impossible communication?

Nothingness of self-centered endeavors? Perpetual suspension (of …)?

Nirvana: type 1, of silkworms with desperate desires

“Sinking, intoxicating”: both descriptions imply passivity (lack of self-motivation, resistance, etc.) and surrender (to gravity, temptation, etc.)

What’s the difference between Lu Xun’s ‘Nirvana 1’ and the Buddhist Nirvana?

Cf. Oxford entry: Buddhism—The realization of the non-existence of self, leading to cessation of all entanglement and attachment in life; the state of being released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth.

What’s the difference between “Nirvana” and “life’s Nirvana?”

Paragraph 2

Echo of the cut: a sword and a surgery knife

“One single strike”: the vulnerability of human skin (i.e. the physical life)

“Arrows,” “flood”: intensity and immediacy of bloody slaughter

Twist: the slaughtered/victim instantly becomes the slaughterer, while at the same moment the slaughterer turns into the slaughtered/victim.

In neither case is “victim” necessarily negative: being a victim opens possibilities of accessing Nirvana!

Weapon of the slaughtered-turned-slaughterer: icy breath and pale lips—in the name of revenge?

In the Chinese original there is no gender specification; the binary context of she/he or him/her is avoided by using gender-neutral pronouns.  Why so?

Nirvana: type 2, of the slaughterer-turned-slaughtered &

Nirvana: type 3, of the slaughtered-turned-slaughterer

Affinities: “soaring, climaxing”—in striking contrast to type 1 of the silkworms

Differences: loss of humanity (i.e. the spiritual life), fleeting, momentary experiences gained under specific circumstances vs. loss of blood & warmth (and presumably the physical life), lasting, perpetual experiences of seemingly unconditional immersion

Paragraph 3

“This way, therefore”: distinct, curious transition—fake causation or convincing logic?

If fake causation: why bother faking it? How can a pseudo-argument benefit the story?

If convincing logic: in what sense “therefore?” What back story is told about “the two of them” before their first appearance in the text?  What connections can be made between “the two of them” and the pair of slaughtered/slaughterer in Paragraph 2?

“Naked” yet “gripping swords”: primitive, confrontational—bare body, equipped hand

“In the vast wilderness”: geographic/cultural extreme chosen to create narrative gaps

            In the middle of nowhere—both “the two of them” and the reader of the text:

Who are they? What is their gender (as in Paragraph 2, no gender specification)? What is their relationship?

Where do they come from? How do they end up here?

Why are they (at least seemingly) determined to fight a duel?

Paragraph 4

“About to”: whose voice/assumption?  Observed from whose view?

“Embrace” and “slaughter”: two extreme possibilities—either or? Both at the same time?

Paragraph 5

“Passers-by”: how can people pass by a “vast wilderness?” It sounds rather like pilgrims “from all directions!”

What is the sacred temptation or promised spectacle?

Is “hurrying here” individually motivated or a fanatic ‘mass flow?’

What generates the incredible energy of the pilgrims—morbid curiosity, unbearable dullness, lack of imagination, comfort of being together, anonymous, and hidden, fear of being alone, distinct, and exposed?

“Silkworms,” “with all their might”: immediate reminder of the opening—passivity, surrender, and Nirvana type 1

In contrast to the tension between the ‘audience’ and the ‘stage actors’: the absence of communication among the audience

“Ants ready to haul away a cured fish head”: new scene/comparison—effective description of absurd eagerness and laughable seriousness  

“Pretty clothes,” “empty hands”—in striking contrast to “the two of them”: civilized yet weak (incapable of survival in the vast wilderness)

“Stretch their necks to enjoy and examine the embrace or slaughter”: a response to the question: whose view/assumption? Observed from whose view? The passers-by!

Only the two extreme possibilities are considered by the passers-by worth happening or worth watching.

Only when the passers-by themselves are physically safe can they enjoy and examine the risky adventures of “the two of them.”

“Enjoy and examine”: first enjoy, then examine—the examination is to defend, excuse, and justify the joy!

“Forefeel”: the “sweat or blood” of others on “their own tongues”

How directly and intensively are the passers-by engaged in the presumed duel!

“Embrace or slaughter” “sweat or blood”: the two extreme possibilities make no difference to the passers-by:

Weird symbiosis of zealous interest and perfect indifference

Paragraph 6

“Yet”: against whose expectations?

The passers-by-turned-audience

The reader of the text

Each of “the two of them”

The vast wilderness as a stage for—

The duel between “the two of them”

The duel between “the two of them” and the passers-by

The duel between human beings and the nature

The duel between human lifespan and eternity, etc.

Wording: repetition and reversal combined through “but”

Repetition: enhanced poetry; but also enhanced boredom

Reversal: an absolute denial of not only the action (embrace/slaughter) but also the intention

“The vast wilderness”: unchanged by the sudden arrival of the passers-by

            A superior, mocking, and disrespectful smirk of the wilderness at the passers-by?

Irrelevance, inexistence, lack/absence of being/humanity of the passers-by?

Who is now viewing and speaking?

Paragraph 7

Repetition: enhanced poetry; yet even more enhanced boredom

Who is now bored?

The audience in- and outside of the text (passers-by and the reader) by the non-happening.

“The two of them” by the audience, by each other, and by themselves.

The wilderness by the absurdity of human behavior and community...      

“Round, limber bodies”: implication of health and strength

Impossible to see the bodies of the passers-by through their “pretty clothes;” a possible reason for them to wear clothes: cover their unhealthy, stiff, less presentable bodies.

A possible reason for “the two of them” to be naked: primitive pride in their primitive figures; intact self-confidence; independent of decoration and cover.

The anticipated “withering” of the “round, limber bodies”: a price of revenge?

A revenge of “the two of them” on the passers-by for their fanatic gaze and comfortable indifference by acting against their expectations

A revenge of “the two of them” at the cost of suppressing their own desires and abandoning their initial plans, of aging without visible activities and living seemingly in vain

Is the revenge worth the sacrifice (price/cost)?

Paragraph 8

“Bored/boredom”: one of the key words eventually emerges to the text surface

The passers-by “hurry here” in hopes of escaping boredom, yet end up in being “drilled” by boredom so intensely that they “lose life’s joy.” Is this how they pay for their ‘crime’ (of trying to entertain themselves via morbid gazes)?

“Drilling”: a reminder of the “silkworms,” yet more negative, painful, tormenting.

Victim of boredom (those who are bored) <=> generator of boredom (those who ‘contribute’ to and reinforce boredom)

“Dry throats and tongues”: opposite of their “forefeeling” the fresh taste of others’ “sweat and blood”

Irony. Effective revenge?

“They look at one another in blank dismay”: the first time the passers-by seem to care about/communicate with one another—however, a false care/communication after all.

Paragraph 9

“The vast wilderness”: the last and only triumphant

The passers-by (and probably also “the two of them”) are no more than a temporary, replaceable ‘decoration’ to the wilderness, just like the pretty clothes to them

The vulnerability of human beings—regardless of life style

The nothingness of revenge—regardless of whatever result

“With the gaze of the dead”: loss of the physical life, gain of the penetrating eyes?

“Enjoy and examine”: reversal

            Those who intend to gaze <=> those who are eventually gazed

Parallel to the reversal: the slaughtered <=> the slaughterer

“Stand withered,” “witheredness”: both perished

No absolute winner in revenge.

“Bloodless slaughter”: another keyword of the story, seemingly opposite of the ‘bloody’ opening

Physical implication/reading vs. spiritual implication/reading (Diary of a Madman; The Kite)

Bloodless slaughter of whom by whom—

of the passers-by by “the two of them”

of “the two of them” by the passers-by

Nirvana: type 3, of the actors-turned-audience or the gazed-turned-gazer

Parallel to that of the slaughtered-turned-slaughterer (Paragraph 2)

Perpetual immersion in “life’s soaring, climaxing Nirvana”—what is gained at the end? At what cost?

Back to the Title

A modern Chinese counterpart of Much Ado About Nothing?

A parody of eventful revenge tragedy genre?

Make sense of Revenge:

Revenge on the passers-by (audience I)

Revenge on the text reader (audience II)

Revenge on each of “the two of them”

Revenge on blood

Revenge on humanity

Revenge on the vast wilderness

…

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[1] My lively gratitude to Christopher Ellers, James Amstutz , Kristin Love, Mary Caro Franko and William Hall for their dedicated, unique, and inspirational contributions to the night discussion on January, 24, 2013.

The Kite

The Kite

Lu Xun 1925

Tr. Huiwen Zhang 2013

 Winter in Beijing, over the ground snow is still piled, bald ash-black branches fork and cross in a bright clear sky, while in the distance one or two kites bob—for me, a puzzlement and sorrow.

Home’s kite season is springtime February.  If you hear the rustle of wind wheels, sha sha, look up and you will see a pale-ink crab kite or a tender-blue centipede kite.  Still more a lonesome tile kite, with no wind wheels and released too low, solitarily exhibits a fatigued, pitiable appearance.  Yet, at this moment, willows on the ground already shoot forth sprouts, early mountain peaches oft also break into buds; both correlate with the children’s adornment of the sky, merging into the mild harmony of spring.  Now where am I?  All around is still the solemn desolation of harsh winter, yet in this sky the long-elapsed spring of long-parted home ripples.

But I have never been fond of releasing kites, not only not fond, but even scornful, because I considered them trifles made by good-for-nothing children.  My opposite was my younger brother, at that time about ten years old or so, oft ill, miserably skinny, yet most fond of kites.  On his own he could not afford one, nor would I have allowed him to release one.  All he could do was to open his little mouth and stare motionless at the sky, his spirit flown, sometimes even as long as almost half a day.  When in the distance the crab kite unexpectedly fell, he exclaimed in surprise; when two tangled title kites came loose, he leaped for joy.  All these, in my view, cause for laughter, despicable.

One day, I suddenly recalled it seemed that for many days I had barely seen him, but I remembered once seeing him in the backyard picking withered bamboo.  As if a light dawned upon me, I ran toward a seldom visited hut of amassed junk.  I pushed open the door, and sure enough, among a dusty heap of odds and ends I discovered him.  He was facing a large square stool, sitting on a small stool; taken by surprise, he stood up, pale and crouching.  Leaning against the large square stool was the bamboo frame of a butterfly kite on which paper was yet to be pasted; on the stool was a pair of small wind wheels to be used for eyes, which he had just been decorating with a red paper strip, almost done.  I, in satisfaction at cracking his secret, was also furious at his concealing it from my eyes—that he with such persistence and expertise was underhandedly making a good-for-nothing child’s trifle.  I immediately reached out and broke the frame of one butterfly wing, then threw to the ground the wind wheels and crushed them flat.  In age, in strength, he was not at all a match for me; of course I reaped total victory and then proudly walked away, leaving him standing dispirited in the hut.  What happened to him then, I did not know, nor did I care to notice.

My punishment, however, finally turned on me, a very long time after we had parted, when I was already middle-aged.  I had the misfortune of bumping into a foreign book about children and then I became aware that play is a child’s most proper conduct, that toys are a child’s godsend.  So the childhood scene of spiritual slaughter I had not at all recalled over the last twenty years all of a sudden unfolded before my eyes; while at the same time my heart seemed to have also turned into a lead lump, heavily, heavily falling down.

But the heart did not fall all the way down to shatter at the bottom, either; it was just heavily, heavily falling, falling.

I was well aware of ways to make amends: present him with a kite, approve him to release, encourage him to release, he and I together release.  We are shouting, running, laughing—yet he at that time was already like me, had long before grown a beard.

I was well aware of still another way to make amends: go ask his forgiveness, wait for him to say: “But I did not in the least blame you.”  Then my heart would certainly be lightened—this indeed was feasible.  At one time when we met, both our faces had gained many an engraved line of life’s hardship, while my heart was heavy.  Little by little we brought up childhood stories; then I recounted this particular chapter, speaking of my own young confusion.  “But I did not in the least blame you,” I thought he was going to say; I would then immediately receive forgiveness, and my heart from then on would also be freed.

“Did this kind of thing happen?” he said, with a smile of puzzlement, as if listening to someone else’s story.  He did not recall it at all.

Wholly forgotten, not the least grudge, what meaning did forgiveness even have any more?  Ungrudging forgiveness: nothing but a lie.

What could I still hope for?  My heart had to be in fall.

Now, home’s spring is anew in the sky of this foreign land, not only bringing me back the long-elapsed childhood reminiscences, but along with them also an unmanageable sorrow.  I would do better to go and hide in the harsh winter of solemn desolation; but all around is in any case harsh winter, already providing me extraordinary severity and chill.