An Analysis on Chronicle of A Blood Merchant By Yu Hua from the View of Black Humor

王亞光

Abstract: Black Humor is a literary form of post-modernism， which became prominent in the 1960s. As a trend of literary form in America， Black Humor had reached a peak with the masterpiece Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Under the background of these， Black Humor is also a successful attempt as a new literary form in China. Among them， Chronicle of A Blood Merchant by Yu Hua is the unique one in Chinese literati， which has been a significant milestone as a practice of Black Humor in China. The paper first states what Black Humor is and then illustrates its features and characteristics. And further analyze the concrete embodiment of these elements of Black Humor in the Chronicle of A Blood Merchant.

Key words: Catch-22; Yu Hua；Black Humor; Chronicle of A Blood Merchant；

文章編號：1674-3520（2014）-10-00-02

When it comes to the term Black Humour， it would remind of us that famous masterpiece Catch-22 by American author Joseph Heller， from which the characteristics of Black Humor are illustrated to the limit. Black humor as a moment became prominent in the 1960's. But critics have found elements of black humor in the writings of the English author Jonathan Swift and the French philosopher Voltaire in the 1700's and in the writings of some earlier authors (中國英語學習網：Humor & Black Humor). And as for Black Humor in China， the masterpiece Chronicle of A Blood Merchant (《許三觀賣血記》) by Yu Hua is a typical representative of the embodiment of Black Humor in 1995， which is a significant milestone of the practice of the usage of Black Humor in China. Therefore， it is necessary to know about the theory， features and the typical elements of Black Humor.

Black Humor as one of the most important literary theories in post-modernist literature used to express the absurdity， paradox， and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce (Reference.com: humour). As a reflection of Black humor in novels， novels of this type often seek to the highlight the absurdity of the living environment with mocking and ridiculing ways and description and even attack the concept of traditional values and aesthetics in order to express the alienation of the world， the degradation of human nature and the broken emotions of human beings. And some critics called the Black Humor as “humor under gallows.” And it is in nature an anti-rationalist and an anti-idealist form of literature (百度知道：黑色幽默). So in Yu Huas Chronicle of A Blood Merchant， it is no doubt that the features and the elements of Black Humor are embodied totally.

In Chronicle of A Blood Merchant， the people of China are under the reign of Chairman Mao， and Yu Hua presents an unflinching portrait of life for the Chinese during Chairman Maos reign with way of Black Humor (Curledup.com: Chronicle of a Blood Merchant). The story happened in the early years of 1950s. A young man named Xu Sanguan is the main character who is a Chinese everyman and a cart-pusher in a silk mill. Due to his poverty， his decided to visit the local blood chief to sell his blood regularly for sustain his family out of many reasons. Despite of his hard and persistent work in the silk mill， he has to resort to find another way to sustain his family， which is blood selling in hospital. This novel is about a man with subtle experiences with the theme of blood selling， whose experiences of blood selling greatly shocked us and made us think profoundly. In the story， though the main characters experience is so tuff， we can still find many humorous words from the description of Yu Hua in the novel. So in order to know about how the elements of Black Humor are embodied in Yu Huas Chronicle of A Blood Merchant， it is necessary to analyze the typical words or description from the novel so that with the further analysis we can understand better about it. As the paper mentioned above， the elements of Black Humor mainly are embodied in the following points. They are absurdity， insensitivity， paradox， cruelty of the world， exaggeration， tragic farce， mocking and ridiculing and alienation of the world aiming at attacking the traditional concept and aesthetic values. And Yu Huas Chronicle of A Blood Merchant is no exception of this in the view of Black Humor. Therefore， the paper will further analyze the novel with the elements above respectively.

Absurdity， paradox and cruelty of the world in Chronicle of A Blood Merchant. Associated professor Han Yuhai from Chinese Department of Peking University said， “The highlight of Yu Huas works is he uses the way of absurdity to make a real” (李韻婕 評余華《許三觀賣血記》). Chronicle of A Blood Merchant is a mixture of absurdity and humor. From beginning of the novel， absurdity was involved all the time. As we know， a traditional Chinese farmer lives off the land， which could supply enough food for their living. However， the real condition is so hard that a farmer like Xu Sanguan changed his mind to sell his blood for money rather than living off the land. For example， Xu said， “I can earn 35 yuan as long as I sell my blood once， which equals to the cost of the effort on farm half a year” (Yu 371). So from these words， we can easily find that the degradation and devaluation of a farmers work in China at that time so that the farmer had to sustain his life in the way of selling blood (Koby 許三觀賣血記). Furthermore， another absurdity in the novel is that the queer proposal of Xu to Xu Yulan whom Xu Sanguan didnt know. He just treated Xu Yulan and asked her to marry him. All of these are a typical kind of paradox in Chinese rural region at that time. And also the story happened in the period of the Culture revolution which is the highlight of the description of absurdity from the personal experience of Xu Sanguan (Koby 許三觀賣血記). Additionally， the achievement on tension by Yu Hua in Chinese literati is sure to be talked about constantly. Tension here mainly a type of relation of a proper balance between the so-called binary opposites， such as white vs black， more vs less and heavy vs light. So in Chronicle of A Blood Merchant， Yu Hua uses the relation of tension so successfully that the novel illustrates and portrait the Chinese society so vividly， such as Xus sadness vs Xus joy， desperation vs hope， decision vs hesitation， and sense vs sensibility. From these relations in the novel， we can experience profoundly the state and peoples thought in that age as well as the cruelty of that age. Therefore， according to the humorous description and the realistic words， we can not only helping laughing， but also experience the cruelty of the society in 1950s China profoundly.

Exaggeration， tragic farce， mocking and ridiculing and alienation of the world aiming at attacking the traditional concept and aesthetic values in Chronicle of A Blood Merchant. As we know， exaggeration， tragic farce， mocking and ridiculing are the indispensible and essential elements that consist of the frame of Black Humor. Therefore， descriptions of these are everywhere in Chronicle of A Blood Merchant. For example， blood chief Li said，” Bullshit! Dont I know how big bladders you have? Your bladders are fucking bigger than a womans womb and you at least took ten bowl of water” (Yu 375). So such full of comic effects exaggeration are common in the story; He Xiaoyongs wife was crying over saying， “I ‘m an unlucky star! He Xiaoyongs gonna die in the hospital and the doctors cannot save him! Neither can Mr. Chen from west city. Only Yi Le could save him! As long as Yi Le call Hes ghost back on the roof of my house， Hes ghost would come back， otherwise I will be a widow…” (Yu 442). And also Xu Sanguan in the end of the story not only does not reflect upon his experiences of selling blood， but also considered these as a benefit thing rather than a sad and ugly thing. From this description and his psychology， we can foresee the tragic farce of Xus life. Furthermore， the mocking and ridiculing words and descriptions are the highlight of Black Humor in this novel. In this story， Yu uses repetition may times to strengthen the effect of ridiculing so that a funny effect was created. For example， the description of repetition like “Xu Sanguan says to Xu Yulan” emerges in the beginning of the three paragraphs in chapter 1 is the typical one that causes a sense of humor and rhyme. Especially this usage fully shows its great power to portrait the vivid daily life in a simple way (李韻婕 評余華《許三觀賣血記》). Therefore， with the way of Black Humor， Yu Hua in Chronicle of A Blood Merchant made a prominent example in China mainland.

To sum up， Chronicle of A Blood Merchant by Yu Hua is a milestone of the practice of Black Humor in China， from which Yu， with the theme blood selling， gave us a panoramic view of Chinese farmer at that time. The successful application of Black Humor not only makes the novel and its plot attractive， but also perfectly merges the western literary theory with Chinese traditional creation of the novel. Yu in the story uses colloquial and local words brings us a fresh flavor of countryside， which undoubtedly strengthened the effect of mocking and ridiculing as well as shortening the distance between the characters and the readers. Although the end of the Chronicle of A Blood Merchant is a happy and full of sense of a sentence saying， we still can experience that the story is a tragedy with tear and joy!

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