On The Rhetorical Motivations Of Mo Yan’s Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out From Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Perspective

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out depicted the social and villagers’ life changes in Gaomi Northeast Village from animals’ perspective,and these changes mainly happened from 1950 to 2000.And it’s unique narrative perspective has caught many scholars’ attention.Up to now,studies abroad are limited,but studies at home are being continually developed and enriched.And the related studies at home mainly carried out from the perspectives of narration,land complex,hallucinatory realism,religion and Howard Goldblatt’s English translation,few researches are conducted to study Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out from Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic perspective.This research is mainly a qualitative study.A detailed pentadic analysis of the landlord Ximen Nao’s reincarnations as a donkey,an ox,a pig and a dog is made based on Kenneth Burke’s pentadic criticism.These four different animals witnessed the social changes in Gaomi Northeast Village,and Mo Yan tried to restore history through a lot of detailed description.By labeling the five elements,namely,scene,act,agent,agency,and purpose in the representative examples of the four chapters,analyzing the relation among these five elements and finding the prominent ratios,the hidden motives of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out will be figured out.The results show that Mo Yan gives high priority to the element of “scene” when writing Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out;“scene-act” ratio and “act-purpose” ratio are the prominent ratios in this novel.Besides,by depicting some villagers’ selfish,cruel and ridiculous actions faced with the historical movements,Mo Yan expresses such motive that social changes have greatly influenced people’s life and thought.Meantime,by depicting Blue Face’s self-farming,kind and diligent behavior,Mo Yan expresses his profound love to the land,and his hometown.He also speaks highly of the labouring people’s indomitable,optimistic and firm spirit.By applying Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad in the analysis of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,this study can deepen readers’ understanding of the motives in Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.Besides,readers can not only have a better understanding of Mo Yan’s works and creative thought,but also can improve their writing ability and appreciation ability based on the analysis of Gaomi Northeast Village.