| That Lao She was indebted to Charles Dickens has become a commonplace opinion held by scholars, East and West. At the threshold of the twentieth century, Lin Shu, the pioneer translator, introduced Dickens to the Chinese public, but Lao She's contact with the works of the Victorian master did not occur until he went abroad as an instructor in the School of Oriental Studies of the University of London. Lao She read British novels, including those of Dickens, for the sake of improving his knowledge of the language of Shakespeare. As time progressed, he developed a special interest in the technique and plot structure employed by English writers. In his Lao-niu P'o-ch'e, Lao She confessed frankly that he was familiar with the works of Thackeray, Walpole, Hardy, Wells, Lawrence, Swift, Conrad, and in particular Dickens.Lao She and Dickens have much in common. Both writers underwent an impoverished childhood, received little education, and started their writing career in their twenties. Dickens's works appeal to the Chinese writer because of their social criticism, episodic plot structure, humor, and method of exaggeration and caricature. The Philosophy of Lao Chang, a highly comic and satiric story about a villainous schoolmaster, takes inspiration from Nicholas Nickleby in characterization and plot. Lao Chang, the villain in Lao She's first novel, resembles in many ways Dickens's Ralph Nickleby and Wackford Squeers. As a target of scorn, he has the mercenary nature and miserliness of the former and cruelty, and incompetency of the latter. The plights of Nicholas, Kate, Madeline Bray suggest those of Li Ying, Li Ching, Wang Te, and Lung Fung in The Philosophy of Lao Chang.The use of a special locale as the setting for many of Lao She's novels reveals another tie to Dickens. The Victorian master is the chronicler of London and the Chinese writer that of Peking. With their intimate knowledge of the city slum, both writers present the squalor and misery of the urban poor in minute details and with realism. The two cities are chaotic and frightening. The London of Nicholas Nickleby signals a money-oriented society and of Oliver Twist a nightmarish criminal underworld. The Peking of Divorce is an epitome of spiritual paralysis and of Camel Hsiang-tzu a pandemonium. |
