A Comparative Study of Stream of Consciousness: Fei Ming and Virginia Woolf

Abstract

A significant group of modern Chinese literary intellectuals became enlightened by Western literary modernism due to the importation and translation of Western theories, literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytical. For example, Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness narrative form, which reflected the effects of the First World War and the development of psychological studies of the time, not only served as a marker of Western modernist novels but also inspired many modern Chinese writers in the second half of the twentieth century. Existing research has for a long time investigated the way Western literary modernism founded the modern Chinese novel. This chapter benefits from previous studies but argues that the case of Fei Ming should have a better place in this history of global modernism and that of world literature. Specifically, Fei Ming spontaneously started what Wu Xiaodong called “poetic fiction” without knowing the experiment of “stream of consciousness” used by Woolf in her own place and time. The two writers shared remarkable similarities in terms of their respective literary style, even if they were referred to by different names. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it explains the relationship between modernity and the aesthetic transformation that Woolf and Fei Ming, in their own cultural literary fields, experienced and facilitated. Second, it compares Woolf’s To the Lighthouse with Fei Ming’s Bridge to reveal the similarities in their stream-of-consciousness process. Third, it exposes the distinct Chinese characteristics of Fei Ming’s stream of consciousness, which made him stand out from his Western counterparts when evaluated from the perspective of world literature. Considering Fei Ming’s extensive influence on modern Chinese writers, especially those belonging to Jingpai Literary School, Fei Ming’s distinct literary style should have a span of influence wider than it now has as it evidences Chinese modernist literature’s unique contribution to global literary modernism.