Ideological Bondage In Historical Chaos In Waiting

This thesis analyzes, by adopting ideological theories, the functions of Ideological State Apparatuses and the intervention of Authorial Ideology in Waiting so as to answer such questions as(1) man cannot be beyond ideologies. We are shaped by them in the light of the specific history we witness;(2) there is hope and anticipation in Waiting if we jump out of the ideological haze to interpret the text.In the novel, the relatively underdeveloped condition and the complicated circumstances at home and abroad have left room for the existence of Confucianism, Taoism and bourgeois ideology. The isolated and beleaguered China requires ideological purity on the way to the reconstruction of the socialist ideology. In order to safeguard the new country and maintain the regime, the socialist ideology hails individuals to be subjects through four specific apparatuses, namely, people's gossip, the press and the theater, the courthouse, and the rationality of the characters. Each of them plays a different role.The gossip arouses the sense of guilt because it is the abnormal observance of the rules; the press and the theatre hide or distort the truth of the reality by cramming people with patriotism or moralism. The courthouse is not a symbol of equality but of the inequality of discourses. The rationality is the most successful self-functioning ‘interpellations' in the characters' minds that help them work by themselves in the social order without the intervention of other apparatuses. Men are not themselves but the subjects to guarantee the reproduction of social relations.Waiting as a theme is not only for the predicament of any single person but for a new country on the way to modernity in a specific period. As a revolutionary author, Ha Jin interweaves his Authorial Ideology with the characters' dreams, unintentional actions and the enduring qualities of Shuyu like integrity, humanity and responsibility. Through these delicate insertions, he implies that the rediscovery of religion and the traditional Chinese culture will provide for people a consistent value system to go through the individual and the societal predicament.