Anatomy of the Superstitious Mind: Subjectivity and Interiority in Two Early Twentieth-Century Rebuttals to Liaozhai's Records of the Strange

Abstract

Focusing on the issue of psychological portrayal, this essay examines two early twentieth-century rebuttals of Liaozhai's Records of the Strange published in newly founded Chinese fiction magazines. Although the two rebuttals lend themselves easily to a didactic interpretation, the essay argues that their demystification of the supernatural is equally in service of literary representation of individualized subjectivity endowed with interiority. Besides aligning itself with the ongoing efforts to recover alternative forms of modernity repressed by the May Fourth discourse, this essay endeavors to contribute to a fuller understanding of the diversity of ideologies, forms, and styles in so-called new fiction.