Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2019

Whose Life Borrowed and How to Live—On the “Affective Politics” of A Life For A Life

(Abstract)

Xu Gang

Always taken the outward appearance of popular story, Shi Yifeng attempts to catch hold of his targeted audiences by readability and then expresses his grand ambition of narration through story-telling. For the story of A Life For A Life per se, its legendary features is easy to be observed, but its basic concern does not reside in the well-organized narration. Instead, Shi tries to project his pursuit of spiritual world onto the dimension of suggestive meaning in his popular story. The goal of this representation of meaning is not only about recording the historical range convoluted in the novel texture, or depicting the typical protagonist in typical environment, but also aims to present the connotation of “affective politics” revealed from the characters’ behavior, which demonstrates an unusual kind of narrative meaning.