Nostalgia as method: contamination of blood and familial ethics in Yan Lianke’s dream of Ding village

Abstract

The notion of nostalgia always implies a sense of discontinuity and dissatisfaction with the present, but it does not always move towards resistance. Based on a close reading of Chinese writer Yan Lianke’s novel Dingzhuang meng 丁庄梦 (Dream of Ding Village), this paper identifies a latent counternarrative of nostalgia, working against the novel’s dominant narrative, which mourns the collapse of familial and social ethics in the wake of socialist developmentalism. Specifically, it argues the novel invokes a nostalgic imagining of traditional Confucian familial ethics, manifested both in Ding Hui’s ambiguous filial piety and the paradox of Ding Liang and Lingling’s adultery and desire for mingfen 名分 (normative status).