The portrayal of disability in contemporary Chinese literature and its relationship to perceptions of and attitudes toward people with disabilities in contemporary Chinese society : an investigative study

Abstract

Disability is and has always been present in all societies for all time. Every society also has its own literature, which reflects the social trends, perceptions and attitudes of the society within which it originates. This dissertation examines the intersection of these two fields, that is, literature and disability, within the context of contemporary Chinese society, with the aim of providing an insight into perceptions of and attitudes toward disability in that particular time and place. A survey of the reportage of disability news in China was carried out, and trends in contemporary Chinese literature examined, in order to place the findings of this current research in the context of relevant developments. Available psychosocial research into perceptions of and a ttitud e s toward disability in contemporary Chinese society has been analysed to provide collateral data which, when cross-re ferenced with Western psychosocial research data, verifies that the similarities between the Chinese and Western contexts in relation to this topic are more striking than the differences. Having established the cross-cultural nature of the topic via this collateral data, the findings of research into the portrayal of disability in Western literature are then used to construct a frame of reference within which the portrayal of disability in contemporary Chinese literature is analysed. The results of the examination and analysis of this range of materials support my thesis that non-disabled authors convey misperceptions of and negative attitudes toward disability in their stories, which parallel community perceptions and attitudes. Works by disabled author Shi Tiesheng are compared and contrasted with those by non-disabled authors, to demonstrate the strikingly different portrayals of disability, and the extent of the misperceptions and negative attitudes toward disability on the part of the non-disabled authors. On the basis of these findings, questions are raised for possible future directions for research into this and related topics.