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A study on Laoshe’s Short Story “Black Li and White Li”

Sujin Kim 1

1성신여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examined Black Li and White Li, a short story by Laoshe in 1934, by comparing it with the actual background of the streetcar destruction case by rickshaw pullers in Beijing. The incident sent out shock waves throughout the nation those days. The streetcar destruction case by rickshaw pullers in Beijing in 1929 was a huge event that exerted enormous impacts and shocks to people during the time, but there were few writers that addressed the case in their literary works except for Laoshe. It is thus needed to contemplate over why he decided to project the case into his literary work. Most of those who were involved in the incident were rickshaw pullers. Laoshe had compassion for them, regarding them as the victims of society those days, instead of ridiculing and criticizing them as fools that were only manipulated by others. In his work, he also criticized the ruling leaders that were only driven by desire like White Li in an indirect, circuitous manner. He tried to reveal the causes of failed revolution in his work along with the problems with those leaders. The biggest significance of Black Li and White Li lies at this point, which raises a reason for looking at the point, which had been considered as a limitation and flaw of the story, from a new perspective. The assessment that the author lacked his understanding of the revolution those days is not thus valid. He decided to include the story in his Collection of Laoshe's Works that he published through a careful selection process after the establishment of People's Republic of China, which was an expression of his confidence about the literary value of the story. In addition, the study examined the self-sacrificing spirit of Black and White Li brothers, which he reproduced in the story by altering the Cain and Abel motif from the Bible, from the Christian perspective and shed light on his creative intention and the influences of Christianity. The narrative of brotherly feud between Cain and Abel was altered in his Black Li and White Li, in which Black Li chose to sacrifice himself for his little brother White Li like a martyr. In Black Li and White Li, a movie of the same title produced in 2010, the director maintained the narrative line of the original work mostly and depicted the basic characters of Black and White Li the way Laoshe intended. The director highlighted the importance and role of Yuzhujun whose image was a strong modern woman in the movie, adding a new narrative of some differentiation from the original work while keeping the content of original work intact.

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