Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2019 

 

Exploring the Depth of History and Humanity—On the Horror Comedy Narrative of Mo Yan’s Fictional World and Its Aesthetic Value

(Abstract)

 

Wang Hongyue

 

Starting from Red Sorghum, Mo Yan’s novels have distinctively integrated horror, cruelty, tragedy and absurdity narratives.These elements are combined with sublime, comedy, humor and farce, leading to an aesthetic subgenre mixed with sublime, i.e., the horrific comedy or ironic comedy. These characteristics dilute the tragic impression in cruel circumstances, transforming bizarre formlessness and absurd meaninglessness into farce and humor, which gives the texts aesthetic and intellectual significance. This is crossover thinking in terms of aesthetics, but also polyphonic narration in terms of narratology. It is in the overlapping zone that Mo Yan’s novels contributed an aesthetic subgenre of horrific comedy.