Neohelicon
Volume/Issue:
Volume 37: Issue 2
A cultural critique in the age of darkness: reinterpreting Lao She’s allegorical novel Cat Country
Author:
Anfeng Sheng Department of Foreign Languages, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 China

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Pages:
373–390
Online Publication Date:
25 Nov 2009
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2010
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-009-0033-1
Keywords:
Cultural critique; Lao She; Cat Country
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Abstract  

Lao She’s novel Cat Country, published in 1932, was one of the greatest satirical allegories in world literature, which nearly helped the author win the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1966. This essay tries to point out that the novel is a full-scale exposition of the then cultural and political darkness. It forewarns the numb national people that the whole civilization would soon be destroyed, or rather self-destroyed, even without any foreign invasion. Most of the “national flaws” which led to the complete destruction of Cat Country still persist, to different degrees, in the current Chinese society. The future of our community is contingent on whether we could face and get rid of those “weaknesses.” But to begin with, the national people have to be awakened to the sordid reality that they have been indulging in for centuries. The essay concludes that Cat Country still bears with it the penetrating satirical power even in the contemporary world, 75 years after its first publication, for the novel has exposed many despicable defects in human nature, which could not be confined to only one single era, or one particular culture.

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Cover Neohelicon
Neohelicon
Print ISSN:
0324-4652
Online ISSN:
1588-2810

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Neohelicon
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1973
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0324-4652 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2810 (Online)

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