The Grief of Losing and the Melancholy of Being: A Journey of Dream and Awakening in Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son

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Abstract

Lao She’s novel Mr Ma and Son (1929) was inspired by the writer’s experience of living in London from 1924 to 1929. Sinologist and historian Frances Wood regards the novel as “a bitter indictment of the racist treatment of, and ignorant attitudes to, Chinese in London in the 1920s” (Wood in Great Books of China: From Ancient Times to the Present. BlueBridge, Kantonah, NY, p 188, 2017). As a Chinese intellectual and supporter of the May Fourth Movement (1919), a patriotic socio-political reform, Lao She acknowledged the challenges of changing foreign attitudes towards China and its people. Mr Ma and Son depicts the lives of Ma Tse-jen and his son, Ma Wei, in London. The two Chinese men are initially regarded as unwelcome in the Gordon Street lodging house of Mrs. Wedderburn and her daughter, Mary. The varying experiences of grief and melancholy endured by the father and his son reflect not only the divergence and incompatibility inherent in Sino–British encounters but also how different approaches to and attempts at integration lead to different outcomes. The father’s infringement on civic virtue to strengthen his own position and the son’s frustrated struggle between his doomed romance with Mary and his growing sense of Chinese nationalism at the expense of his mental health illustrate Liang Qichao’s warning that “the transformation of subjects into citizens” is “the most daunting task in modernizing the imperial state” (Lee in History of Political Thought 28(2):305–327, 2007: 309).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations
Place of PublicationSingapore
Pages99-115
ISBN (Electronic)978-981-99-9821-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Mar 2024

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