Performing the everyday life in ruined city: wife, mistress, and housemaid of a literary celebrity

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dc.contributor.authorCheng, Xiaomeng
dc.contributor.supervisorKing, Richard
dc.date.accessioned2018-08-29T16:40:57Z
dc.date.available2018-08-29T16:40:57Z
dc.date.copyright2018en_US
dc.date.issued2018-08-29
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Pacific and Asian Studiesen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis presents a study of “performing the everyday life” in the writer Jia Pingwa’s well-known novel Ruined City (Feidu 废都). By adopting the sociologist Erving Goffman’s idea of dramaturgical interactions in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, this thesis contends that the social interactions in Ruined City are all performed. I particularly pay attentions to the relationships involving the novel’s central character, the celebrity-writer and one of the four “cultural idlers” in Xijing, which is the ancient capital Xi’an the author lives in real life, Zhuang Zhidie, and the three women in his life— the wife Niu Yueqing, the mistress Tang Wan’er, and the housemaid Liu Yue. Considering Goffman’s idea, I consider Zhuang Zhidie performs various roles when he encounters with each of the women, and they in turn perform the corresponding role to fit in the performance environment Zhuang has regularized with his role and his definitions of situations. In a novel notorious for its graphic descriptions of sex, these relationships are also performed in sexual encounters, and presented with symbolic objects relevant to the characters' roles.en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/9977
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectJia Pingwaen_US
dc.subjectFeiduen_US
dc.titlePerforming the everyday life in ruined city: wife, mistress, and housemaid of a literary celebrityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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