Animal Narrative and the Dis-eventalization of Politics: An Ecological-Cultural Approach to Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

Abstract

Abstract Slavoj Žižek argues that every event is likely to be dis-eventalized, to be retroactively undone. The true event, according to Badiou's account, is “a contingency which converts into necessity,” generating a new principle or paradigm that becomes universally acknowledged. Such true events are rare, but the undoing of past events has always played a predominant role in the course of history. In the novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out written by Mo Yan, China's Nobel Prize Laureate, political events such as the Agricultural Cooperative Movement, the People's Commune Movement, and the Cultural Revolution among others are retroactively undone mainly through the means of animal narrative. In the process, animal narratives also reveal ecological thinking about the harmony among humans, animals, and nature. More importantly, the dis-eventalization of politics and the eventalization of ecological consciousness coexist and complement each other. This dual narrative structure is not only characteristic of the animal narrative of the novel, but also endows it with plot tension and a depth in thought.