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This article sets out to analyze the novel The Song of Ouyang Hai by Jin Jingmai (1965), and to do so within the paradigm of poststructuralist literary criticism. The deconstruction of the text helps us to discover its intertextuality and simulacra and to reveal the contradictions between the author's ideas and the image of the protagonist as actually presented to the reader. Through reference to intertextuality, we see that Ouyang Hai is incapable of thinking and acting independently, he is guided by set phrases and behavior patterns that he has gleaned from Communist literature. Slogans that pervade his speech do not represent real actions, but only simulate them, thus creating a hyperreal environment filled with signs that do not have a prototype in real life, i.e., simulacra. Ouyang Hai's maturation, as he acquires political and ideological consciousness is, in the author's opinion, the process of his evolution. I argue that, on the contrary, this transformation leads to the destruction of the image, which is mostly constructed of propaganda slogans. The image constituting the mere sum of these artificial elements is no longer an integral whole, it breaks down into its elements - destructs, dismantles, defragments itself. Finally, Ouyang Hai is not a copy of a real human being, but - in J. Baudrillard's words - "its own pure simulacrum."
KEYWORDS
Song of Ouyang Hai | Jin Jingmai | Chinese Communist novel | ideal hero | deconstruction | simulacrum | intertextuality | Chinese literature of the Mao era
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INTRODUCTION
The article analyzes the protagonist of the novel Ouyang Hai zhi ge ... by Jin Jingmai ..., which was published in 1965 in mainland China. The English translation of its title is The Song of Ouyang Hai and hereafter I will refer to it using the English translation of the title. The main rationale of the article is to deconstruct the image of the protagonist - Ouyang Hai - within the paradigm of poststructuralist literary criticism, by discovering intertextuality and simulacra and revealing the contradictions between the author's ideas and the protagonist's image as actually presented to the reader. In the first section, "Research Methodology," I present the reasons why I consider it to be constructive to apply the poststructuralist...