Narrating suffering, constructing Chinese modernity: The emergence of the modern subject in Chinese literature

The purpose of this article is to attempt a new reading of the relationship between Chinese modernity and tradition by conducting a case study in Chinese literary modernity. Specifically, it sets up a dialogue between the vernacular tale redacted by Feng menglong (1574–1646), “Fifteen Strings of Cash: A Jest that Leads to Disaster” and its modern transformation “Daybreak” by the contemporary Taiwan writer Zhu Xining (1927–1998). When we juxtapose “Daybreak” with “Fifteen Strings of Cash”, we discover that Zhu's preoccupation with the tension between “modernity” and “tradition” leads to the emergence of the modern subject in Chinese literature. The comparison draws attention to the change of narrator, the differences in narrative structure, the story's temporal rearrangement, and finally the reliance on the female defendant's performativity in shaping the modern male subject.