Where Life Goes Back: On the Pursuit Narrative of Yu Hua's Wencheng

Abstract

Yu Hua's Wencheng is centered on the pursuit, with Lin Xiangfu, Ji Xiaomei, and Ah Qiang as the key characters, enacting a legendary story of good and evil. The novel uses three locations of Xi Town, North Hometown and Xili Village to frame the reincarnation narrative, while creating an absurd and bizarre aesthetic mood through narrative gap, while repetitive narrative constructs the pursuit into a stable structure. The specific metaphors and imagery of Lin's pursuit are concretely expressed in the transformation of the ego and superego. In terms of the ego, it is the pursuit for his wife, while the essence is to fill his unconscious dependence on his mother. In terms of superego, Lin's journey to find Mei stops at Xi Town due to his incapability, but also because Xi Town promotes the development of Lin's moral consciousness. The pursuit for Mei's ego weakens, while the pursuit for superego of the highest goodness gradually increases. Yu's pursuit narrative shows the twists and turns of life ethics, presenting a pioneering aesthetic and continuous historical implication.