Literary Representation Structure in Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain

Abstract

Gao Xingjian (1940 - ) is one of the most outstanding writers that was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000. His novel - Soul Mountain - marks his name as it can be considered one of the “pioneers” of modern Chinese novels. Soul Mountain is exceptional due to its unique narrative which revolves around autobiographical elements of “the traveler - the quest - the storyteller”. The reflection of the stories told by several protagonists: “I” - “You” - “He” elevates the above mentioned auto-biographical elements into artistic representations. So far, there exists a number of researches on the art of the narrative in Soul Mountain which already yields certain results. Therefore, this essay is aimed to explore Soul Mountain from a different angle in which the representation structure of “the traveler”, “the quest” and “the storyteller” would be profoundly analyzed to cast light on the novel’s narrative structure.