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The Edge of Chaos: An Analysis of Liu Zhenyun’s Yi ju Ding Yi wan ju

김영철 1

1동국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Looking into “Yi ju ding wan ju: A Top Ten Thousand” by Liu Zhenyun, based on Complex System, it can be concluded that Chinese agricultural society is on the “edge of chaos”. The author states that the “impossibility of communication” is the root of chaos. Like the title of this novel, nobody can expect to receive a sincere “word” when the people who we trust betray us. If this happens lower class people not only to high class people, the society are in danger of dissolution. Such a society is “nonlinear.” In a “nonlinear society,” experiencing lack of trust, nothing reasonable happens. People at the bottom there live abnormal and distorted lives. Because they cannot endure it anymore, those people try “chaotic wanderings.” In the course of the dissolution, they attempt to take alternative actions, “emergent behaviors,” of true communications, desire and love. However, their “emergent behaviors” fail in their hometown. Because it is difficult for the new attempts to be accepted in their hometown, which in on the “edge of chaos,” people leave there. In the last part of the novel, Niu aiguo leaves to find his new lover, Zhang chuhong. This is not a negative deviance but a creative chase and even a revolutionary leap. Therefore, “loneliness” in modern Chinese society is not destiny but a challenge.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.