On The Literary Metaphor Of The "Sick Man" And The National Imagination In The End Of Qing Dynasty And The Beginning Of The Republic Of China

This paper will use the metaphorical efficiency transformation of "Sick Man of East Asia" as a research cut,focus on key words such as "intellectual","national","imagination","disease" and "body",attempt to clarify the generation logic of "national" imagination from the 1890 s to the 1920 s.First,review the historical facts of the "Sick Man of East Asia",it was discovered that since the 1890 s,the metaphorical ontology of the "sick man" has undergone an effective transformation from the Qing Dynasty regime to the modern state to the national body.To isolate the transformation path of the metaphorical efficacy of the "sick man",this paper will start from two perspectives: the subject of generation and the carrier of space,look back on the transformation process of modern intellectuals,the establishment of modern newspapers and magazines,discover how the literary world in the late Qing Dynasty realized the discourse flow of the "sick man" imagination through the words of intellectuals and the dissemination of newspapers and magazines.Through the interpretation of literary works such as "Nie Hai Hua","Love Tian Debt" and "Lao Can’s Travel Notes",discern the differences in the stance of the "sick man" of the writers in the late Qing Dynasty,reveal the complex and diverse visions of the imagined picture of "Sick China" in the late Qing literary world.Next,in order to clarify the discourse migration clues of the "sick man" metaphor from the country’s level to the national level,I will focuse on novels in the late Qing Dynasty,supplemented by newspapers and magazines in the early 20 th century,discover that the formation and discourse of modern Chinese national concepts,and the construction of the dualistic view of the body,which provided the ideological premise for the "national" imagination that constantly emerged in the literary world of the late Qing Dynasty.Take "New Stone Biography ","Nie Haihua","Lao Can’s Travel Notes ","Love Tian Debt","New China","Xin Min Shuo","Song Ling’s New Girl Legend" as examples,the textual practice of the literati in the late Qing Dynasty to recreate the nation echoes the demands of the times to save the nation from peril,with obvious concept implantation and political calligraphy,without clear-faced,distinct "new man" image,the value of "person" as an individual has not been demonstrated.Lu Xun formed his own unique writing mode while continuing the ideological resources of the late Qing Dynasty.The experience of studying medicine in Japan and the history of diseases that lasted for several years constituted Lu Xun’s dual identities as a "medician" and a "patient".After reading through "The Complete Works of Lu Xun",we can discover the duality of his disease writing and national imagination,that is,the dual "sickness" view from the body to the mind,from the other to the self.As a "medicine",Lu Xun delves into the national body and spirit from an anatomical perspective,exposes the invalid scams of traditional medicine,shows the tragedy of the gradual death of the juvenile body,engraves the life plight of mental patients,and diagnose the stubborn ideological problems of the Chiness nation over several generations.As a "patient",Lu Xun pointed the scalpel in his hand at his inner self,and understood the darkness and nothingness in the depths of his soul.Wei Lianshu and Lv Weifu seem to be the "self-portraits" of Lu Xun himself,their final degeneration tragedy implies a spiritual crisis in the later period of Lu Xun’s life.After the May Fourth Movement,the concept of "new man" gradually settled on the soil of reality,but encountered numerous obstacles.On the one hand,it was due to the boundless darkness of society,and on the other hand,it was determined by the limitations of "human race" themselves.As the logical starting point of this paper,the literary metaphor of the "sick man" is explained under Susan Sontag’s disease metaphor theory,and will eventually end up at the logical end of the body theory.At the level of historical facts,it summarizes the criminal law reform and the military-national movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China,and conducts an overall analysis of the issue of national body reform throughout the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China,explains that under the demands of the times to strengthen the country and preserve the nation,how to realize the multiple imagination empowerment of power,system and knowledge.On the textual level,it explores the physical improvement in Lu Xun’s writings.His thoughts on social reform movements such as braid cutting and Tianzu had not stayed at the output of political concepts,but extended to a deeper level,revealed the complex features of China’s modern revolution.The indifference and cruelty of the national character,the isolation and helplessness of the revolutionaries,and the degeneration and loss of female exodus,which were all the precursors of Lu Xun’s different from his predecessors and his peers.Therefore,the basic idea of this paper is to start with the metaphorical efficacy of the term "Sick Man in East Asia",and finally focus on the body,the product of power discipline,through a comprehensive argumentation of multiple dimensions,such as text analysis,theoretical interpretation,and historical facts,outline the micro-historical picture of modern Chinese people’s bodies.