Title

The Subject of Desire and Spiritual Residue: A Psychopolitical Reading of Yu Hua's Brothers

Author

Xiao-bin Yang

Genre

Article  

Pages

261-285   

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Yu Hua, Brothers, objet petit a, Bildungsroman, trauma,
subjectivity     

Abstract

   This paper discusses Yu Hua's Brothers, a novel set against the background of the Cultural Revolution and the present. In light of Lacan's theory of the barred subject, this paper examines how an ironic historical narrative is formed by the filling out of objet petit a during the process of subjectification. In Brothers, the filling out is done through looking voyeuristically at the femal behind. This paper analyzes how objet petit a, which cannot become the true object of desire, serves as the void in the Symbolic order surrounded by desire, and how trauma, in relation to the master-signifier, reflects the violent assault by sociohistorical modernity. This paper also places Brothers in the historical context of the modern Chinese Bildungsroman and reveals the disintegration of grand historical subjectivity. It attempts to probe how an ironic narrative concerning recent history reveals both the residues of the Lacanian Real that cannot be concealed or assimilated by the sacred Symbolic order, as well as the split subject as breakdown of the modern subject.