On The Study Of The Strange Tales Of A Lonely Studio Space In The Power Of Narrative Narrative Transitioning To Health

This paper attempts to discuss the relationship between the narration of body and that of power in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio in the light of Foucault's theory on power and discourse. Many stories in this book take place in the studio which should be a quiet place where books are written and one's morality is cultivated. However, the studio here turns out to be a room for pleasure for the young scholar and the maid, or in more cases, for the young man and the ghost. This can be considered as a deviation from the Confucian tradition. Such kind of deviation involves in the complex relation between literary narration and power narration, and involves in the implied connection between the narration of body and that of power within the studio. Via the Chinese traditional way of narrating strange stories and the technique of corporeal metamorphosis, the bodies of both man and woman are portrayed from different perspectives. At the same time, they are symbolized and the process of symbolization is also a process of disciplining and forging the body under power.In this paper, I suggest that the studio, although appears to be a place for pleasure, is virtually a medium between the countryside and the court. I argue that it is an important place where the Confucian power-knowledge discourse shows its power. The female body in the studio is an object of the power-knowledge discourse system. No matter to view the female body from different angles or to put it into the form of a ghost is to construct a morally and socially normal body with the ultimate intention of controlling and disciplining it. Therefore, the narration of female body turns out to be the narration of power. On the other hand, with regard to the body of the young scholar, his corporeal desire is related with his future success in imperial test. In this sense, the narration of corporeal desire becomes a story of sexual salvation. The body of the young scholar is either the object of power discipline or its object to be reconstructed with the help of certain means. The body of desire in the studio is transformed into a productive body forged, tamed and employed by power. The love story in the studio in turn is changed into a narration of power and the narration of body becomes narrative of power-knowledge discourse with power as its logical destination.In the stories happened in the studio, the scenes of intelligent lad and pretty maid having their date under the blight moon and the hardship of hurrying to take part in the imperial test are the hackneyed context of certain Chinese literary genres. The characters behave under the convention of the ancient conception system and live in a designed world. Their bodies'response to the world is also planned beforehand. The characters under such circumstances are not open to the world while the world is not accessible to them either. In a word, the relation between man and the world is not characterized by mutual openness but by mutual closeness.Only when the body is considered in terms of itself and its sensation of the world and regarded as the product of cultural construction, instead of being considered as the body of the others and the assembling ground of symbols, can it be viewed as its own. Only under such conditions, can it avoid the destiny of being devised by the society and the others and the fate of being absorbed by the narration of power.