The Writing About Sacrifice In Wartime Chinese Literature

At the end of the 19 th century,the modern meaning of “sacrifice” was introduced to China from Japan through translation.“Sacrifice” and its loaded cultural connotations were activated and recreated by the intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty and transformed into a contemporary political evaluation and moral code.At the same time,the de-ritualized and secularized “sacrifice” also lost its connotation of violence,bloodshed,pain,and misery in daily use,and became a neutral term.Since then,May Fourth literature,left-wing literature,and Anti-Japanese war literature have successfully constructed their unique " sacrifice " ways.In the historical context of the Republic of China,the interaction between the concept of sacrifice and literary creation has become a topic worthy of in-depth exploration.The period of the Comprehensive Anti-Japanese War was a historical stage when the images of national heroes and sufferers entered literature in large numbers,and it was also a critical period for the construction of the concept of sacrifice.This paper looks at sacrifice as a changing ideology,reveals the mechanism of literary expression that sanctifies wartime casualties,and explores the mutual production of wartime sacrifice expression and historical facts.The thesis is organized along the following lines.The first chapter establishes the main connotations of “sacrifice” in wartime and sorts out the basic paradigms of its use.Suffering,telling,struggling and sanctifying were the four main discursive modes of "sacrifice" during the war.The narrative of sacrifice broadly conforms to the discursive logic of “enduring suffering(sacrifice)-telling suffering(sacrifice)-struggle as action(sacrifice)-sanctification of sacrifice as immortality,” either in an interlocking or arbitrary combination.The instinctive and dynamic nature of sacrifice is always the essence of “sacrifice”,no matter how it is guided by discourse.In this sense,the conceptual discourse of sacrifice should not be a slogan detached from historical reality,but rather a spiritual lifeline interconnected with perilous times.The second chapter selects works showing the “Eight Hundred Strong Soldiers”defending the Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai to outline the transformation trajectory of“sacrifice” writing in wartime China.The expressions of “sacrifice” by wartime writers in their works show their modification and integration of traditional morality.These works inject multiple meanings into the event by shattering the illusion of quick war,advancing national resistance/liberation,and expressing solidarity with the world national liberation movement.The writers’ blurring of the end of life and death of the brave soldiers constitutes a corrective to the cult of death and accordingly enhances the ideological and moral value of “sacrifice”.Because of the difference between the military and propaganda values of the event and the hasty appropriation of the writer’s experience in writing,there is a sticking point in the expression of the concept of sacrifice,whether it is focused on people or events.Works that use the matter as a discursive device reflect women’s deep involvement in the war effort,imprinted with class positions,civic critique,and a wartime idiosyncratic ethic of love.The writer’s expression of sacrifice is a repetition and reversal of traditional virtues,a twisting and dislocation of language,and a variety of interpretations of the meaning of the event,breaking the perception that the idea of sacrifice is inherently traditional.The sacrificial writing incites the fire of struggle by highlighting the soldiers’ sense of responsibility and mission through their determination to die,thus considering the endurance of suffering as the starting point of struggle and sacrifice,and forming a chain of endurance of suffering-struggle-sanctification.Based on a transnational and cross-cultural perspective,the third chapter analyzes in depth the writing of sacrifice in the novel about the Nanjing Massacre.The sanctification mechanism used by the writers in their narratives of national sacrifice reflects the evolution of the ideological domination of the nation-state and the concept of life and death,including the constructed sacrifice of sharing the national tragedy,the sacrifice of loyalty and righteousness,and the sacrifice of fraternal love and salvation.The Chinese and Japanese writers from the belligerent countries express the disagreement between “the military and the people going to the national tragedy together” and “the abandoned people suffering alone”.Regarding how the sacrifice was carried out and the target outcome,the Japanese writers were happy to dismantle the unity of the Chinese military and civilians and proclaim the sanctity of death in battle as a footnote to the justice of the invasion.Chinese novels that focus on the Battle of Nanking tend to point to the constructive sacrifice of “building a nation through resistance” and national liberation,focusing on the strengthening of national identity and the belief in victory,constituting a rebuttal to the theory of the death of the nation through sacrifice.The sacrifices interpreted by Chinese writers tend to demystify the beliefs in ghosts and gods,and while seeing the “war of resistance will be won” as the truth,they incorporate national traditions and promote the responsibility of the whole nation to save and save itself.European and American writers combine the ideal of salvation based on suffering with religious traditions,emphasizing the altruistic nature of sacrifice,and thus enjoying the honor of enjoying the savior alone.The differentiation between sacrificial expression and religion proves the falsity of the notion that “China is saved by the West.The stories of female sacrifice in the Nanking Massacre narrative often carry the blame for China’s wartime posture and the whitewashing of aggression rather than the consideration of women’s survival in wartime From In the preoperative of foreign writers,the Chinese nation’s joint commitment to the disaster is often reduced to an internal conflict of civil-military confrontation and gender antagonism,which then serves to glorify Japanese atrocities and sow the glory of foreigners.Writing about the “sacrifice” of the Nanking Massacre requires the potential for struggle through suffering and the recognition of the collective and national nature of the notion of sacrifice as a precondition for choosing among different ways of sanctifying “sacrifice”.Chapter 4 explores how the memory of suffering and trauma can be sublimated by interpreting the creation of the Bombing of Chongqing as the main content.The bombing of Chongqing was an inhumane massacre perpetrated by the Japanese with the support of modern technology.With contempt for mechanized atrocities,the writers use the indiscriminate bombing to paint a picture of human rights and equality and the rebirth of fire,expressing the spirit of resisting the enemy with more and more courage and solidarity.The transformation from victim to victim makes the bombing a fragment of a nation’s resistance to foreign invasion,which accumulates material for the condensation of national identity and constitutes the link between “struggle” and“sanctification” in the writing of “sacrifice”.The mutual production of “struggle” and“sanctification” in the writing of “sacrifice”.The narrative of “the bombing experienced by foreigners” reveals both the civilizational and evolutionary logic of “bombing to modernize the city” and the latent demand to maintain the existing rule and seek international assistance,the effect of which meets the expectations of Chinese and foreign officials and reveals the complicity of wartime The effect satisfies the expectations of Chinese and foreign officials and reveals the complicity of Chinese and Western narratives during the war.Works that are grounded in remembering suffering and reflecting on evil retain the physical and psychological messages of victims coping with modern atrocities,showing a willingness to care for humanity and examine civilization.The sacrificial writings of the wartime bombing in Chongqing have achieved a “sanctification” effect through the “telling of suffering,” demonstrating literature’s efforts to regain meaning amid airtime and the absurdity of modern atrocities.All in all,the “sacrificial” writing of wartime literature is accompanied by the continuous creation of the subject,which is an enlightenment and inspiration for the Chinese nation as a whole.By effectively manipulating the expression of sacrifice,literature re-establishes and reinforces the connection between the sacred and the sacrificial.More importantly,the writers find a parallel to the “sacrifice” discourse paradigm,a space for the interpenetration of discourses.At the same time,the construction of the notion of sacrifice is a dialectical process of renewing the sacrificial instinct and inspiring sacrifice.Thus,it is time for the information stored in wartime literature to be reopened and become a lesson for positioning the notion of sacrifice in our time.