A Review of Zhang Xudong's Land, Life and Samsara – Reading Life and Death are Wearing Me Out from the perspective of structuralism literary theory and western sinology

Abstract

In the 1980s and 1990s, structuralism was translated and introduced into the mainland China along with the Western cultural boom, but there are still few papers that study Mo Yan's novels from the perspective of structuralism. Zhang Xudong, in his article Land, Life and Samsara—Reading Life and Death are Wearing Me Out analyzed the linguistic features and themes of Mo Yan's works by five codes extracted in the structuralism literary theory, which can enrich the theoretical methods of Mo Yan studies in China and play a positive academic influence in the exchange between Chinese and Western literature. Meanwhile, Zhang Xudong’s native consciousness as a Chinese sinologist and his awareness of the historical context of contemporary China also made him shorten the distance between Western theory and the experience of Chinese works in the sinological areas, playing a unique bicultural cross-border role.