Masculinity and the Domestic Space in 1990s' Shanghai: Reading Chen Cun's "Fresh Flowers"

• In Event: Public and Private Spaces in Contemporary Chinese Literature

Abstract

Chen Cun’s 1997 novel Xianhua he (Fresh Flowers And) chronicles the life of its semi-autobiographical protagonist, the writer Yang Se, as he comes to terms with being a stay-at-home father in a relationship with a professionally more successful younger woman. Written in fragmented prose, and featuring extensive use of interior monologue, the novel represents Chen Cun’s final attempt at formal experimentation in printed fiction, before his later move to writing prose chronicles exclusively on the Internet.

Public and private spaces play a key role in the novel. The most meticulously constructed private space is the protagonist’s stream of consciousness, detailing the range of emotions he goes through in the process of his domesticization, and laying bare some profound gender-based biases and insecurities. On another level, the protagonist’s narration constructs the home as his own private space, which he shares with his daughter and her various nannies, and which is defined negatively by the frequent absence of his female life partner. The home is also where Yang Se receives visitors attracted by his reputation as a writer, signalling his status in the public sphere, although his literary output is increasingly limited to screenplays for soap series, i.e. writing stories about private lives for public consumption.

This paper brings together the panel’s emphasis on public and private spaces with a discussion of literary experimentalism and gender roles in 1990s urban China, focusing on Chen Cun’s attempt to move away from traditional storytelling as he captures masculine anxiety in all its prosaic detail.

Author

• Michel Hockx, SOAS, University of London