The Study Of Mo Yan’s Novel "Sandalwood Punishment" And Heavy Penalty At The End Of Qing Dynasty

At the end of Qing Dynasty, the foreign powers invaded into China, which intensified social unrest. Faced to the domestic trouble and foreign invasion, the Qing government was forced to implement criminal law reform. “New Criminal Code of Qing Empire” tried to dispel the defects of Statutes and Precedents of the Qing Empire and achieve social stability, but it did not achieve the desired effect.Mo Yan’s novel “Sandalwood Penalty” is one of his magnum opus which tells us many appalling historic cases under the background of the series of historical events like Germen building Jiaoji railway, Yuan Shikai suppressing the Boxer Movement and the Eight-Power Allied Force invading in Beijing. Mo Yan’s masterpiece “Sandalwood Punishment” combines folk story and history, then builds a new structure and conducts literary writing, which represents contemporary writers’ reflection on the heavy penalty system, and reflects literature review of the history and care of contemporary.Through in-depth analysis of the novel can be seen: “supreme authority” reflected by “heavy penalty”, and the traditional cultural psychology reflected by the “drama” of heavy penalty, as links which maintain the entire feudal society throughout the novel. On the one hand, owing to Qing government’s maintained of imperial power, the reform became a mere formality, while the ruler still needs to rely on heavy penalty to swear their rule authority to deter the people. On the other hand, the common people at the bottom of society deemed the drama as spice of life, and showed on preference and bloodthirsty fanaticism to heavy penalty, and all these had become evil soil on which the heavy penalty system able to survive.However, “use heavy penalty to governance chaos” is a one-way thinking concept of governing a state. Like a dose of strong medicine, this concept do have effective but only in a short time and finally lead to punishment ineffective in the prevention and control of crime. In today’s legal society, Chinese people’s psychological dependence on heavy penalty system is cultural psychology problem that we must overcome. In the construction of modern legal society, effectively controlling heavy penalty is closely related to the fate of the country and nation and the survival of the people. The formulation and execution of law should be rational, objective, emphasis on people-centered, pay attention to the humanistic care, and maintains the citizen’s fundamental rights and dignity they should enjoy.