Quiet Currents beneath the Torrents of Revolution: Everyday Life in Two Novels by Yan Geling

Abstract

As a revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong had a new vision of China as a reformed revolutionary society. Challenging this radical social vision in The Ninth Widow (Di jiu ge guafu, 2006) and One Woman’s Epic (Yige nüren de shishi, 2007), the contemporary Chinese writer Yan Geling describes how the characters retain their personal mentalities and habits in everyday life as they ignore, outmaneuver or even defy the political demands of revolutionary China. Focused on Yan’s depiction of everyday life, the present paper offers a close reading and analysis of the two novels in relation to the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Alf Lüdtke and Michel de Certeau. It pays special attention to Yan’s depiction of everyday life as a site where the characters in the novels bring their human agency into play as they satisfy their human needs and maintain their individual characteristics. Ultimately, it shows how Yan’s depiction of everyday life questions the reach and efficacy of dominant ideology in revolutionary China.

Key words： Yan Geling; habitus; everyday life; revolutionary China; political socialization; human agency