On the Ecological Significance of Huzhu's Hair in Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing me Out

Wang Lan

School of Foreign Languages,BoHai University,Jinzhou,China

Email:Cathyprincess@163.com

[Abstract] As a true son of the earth,Mo Yan has exhibited the world plenty of ecological values with his unique subtlety and penetration in his novels.For sure,he is to leave this genius of his to the world and have the world cherish it forever.In his Life and Death Are Wearing me Out,Mo Yan victoriously catches people's attention with his depiction of Huzhu's miraculous hair.This paper finds out that the hair is the special linkage between nature and man.With the help of the hair,harmony forms.This paper aims to analyze the significance of Huzhu's hair in the book from the ecological perspective with some oriental ideas of harmony.It intends to help people dig out more ecological flavors in Mo Yan's works especially in this novel and make readers gain more unique feelings to read Mo Yan.

[Keywords] miraculous hair;linkage;man;nature;harmony

Introduction

Owing to the works of Mo Yan,the literature of the world enables to feel more abundant,flexible and dynamic postmodernistic elements.Mo Yan,a true lover of nature,has shown the world a lot of ecological values with his unique subtlety and penetration in his novels.For certain,he is to leave his talents to the world and have the world appreciate his everlasting talents.His Northeast Gaomi Township is an epitome of the whole ecological world.In hisLife and Death Are Wearing me Out,Mo Yan victoriously catches people's attention with his depiction of Huzhu's miraculous hair.This paper figures out the hair is the special linkage between nature and man,between man and man and between man and himself/herself.With the linkage,harmony forms.This paper aims to analyze the ecological significance of Huzhu's hair in the book with some oriental ideas of harmony.It intends to help people to dig out more ecological flavors in Mo Yan's works especially in this novel and make readers get more unique ecological feelings to read Mo Yan.

Some Oriental Ideas of Harmony

Ecocriticism focuses on the relationship between literature and environment.It advocates that human beings should reestablish moral relationships between man and nature,man and man,and man and him/herself (Zhang,2007).Ancient oriental ecosophy is a vital part of ecological holism.It is called oriental deep ecology (Lei,2012).It sees the universe as a holistic ecological system which is always developing in a moving and connected way.Integrity is the key feature of the ecological system.Ancient oriental ecosophy consists of the heavens,the earth and human beings.Those three elements are related very closely.They can never be separated and their harmonious unity is always anticipated and pursued (Zhang,2007).According to Chinese Taoism,Tao means the Way or Law and if everything goes its way under Tao,they can exist harmoniously (Lao,2002)."Ten thousand beings carry yin on their backs and embraceyangin their front,Blending these two vital breaths to attain harmony" (Lao,1972,p.157),in the forms of inseparableyinandyang,everything exists harmoniously.Lao Tzu advocates the forever strength ofyinandyangtoward each other is the vitality of the universe (2002).Chuang Tzu says everything goes in the way ofyinandyangwhich appear increasingly and decreasingly;yinandyangfunction together according to Tao in spiral endless cycles(Lao,2002).They are called Tai-chi mandalas.If this harmony is disturbed,chaos appears.

The Ecological Significance of Huzhu's Hair

In hisLife and Death Are Wearing me Out,Huzhu's miraculous hair is the motive.It drifts through the whole book like the Milky Way.Mo Yan describes Huzhu's miraculous hair like this "her thick black braid falling all the way to her knees...'...My daughter's hair is different from other girls'.If she cut it,blood would seep from it'...'How strange...now I know why it felt sort of fleshy when I touched it.There must be capillaries running through it'"(2015,p.300),"Her hair was thick and lush,a quality rarely seen"(p.165),"'Everybody says she has such a kind heart that if one of the villagers is injured,she'll pull out a strand of her hair for them'...'It keeps growing back'"(p.486).According to oriental thoughts,hair is tightly related to relationships among nature and mankind,especially between children and parents and couples.Woman's long hair can always arouse people's association with nature,the earth,mothers,yin,tenderness and so on.Huzhu's hair is fleshy with capillaries in it.Therefore,it seems that each hair is an independent life."Huzhu was so dead set on keeping her braid...if she'd cut her hair,they'd have oozed blood"(p.165),"while it can't be cut,it can be pull out" (p.321),her hair can't be destroyed with bitter cutting as it connects nature,man and the soul of human beings firmly.Thus it can't be ruined.The hair has a dark golden color which emits holiness and hope all the time.The hair is the vitality of life and of the world and it is the marrow of harmony.Mo Yan makes Huzhu's hair a symbol of the linkage between man and nature,man and man and man and himself/herself.With this unique miraculous hair of Huzhu,harmony appears.

The Miraculous Hair,the Linkage Between Man and Nature

InLife and Death Are Wearing me Out,Huzhu is a very kind-hearted and mild lady.She is not only attractive due to her beauty but also very clever and capable."'No,they're all going to live.'Huzhu put me down and wiped me clean with a soft red cloth.She was so gentle"(Mo,2015,p.222),Huzhu knows how to obey Tao and treats everything equally,considering Pig Sixteen her own child and more human than animal.When one becomes mature,no doubt,s/he is to identify him/herself as an equal member of all creatures(Naess,1995).

After the cruel castration,Diao Xiaosan is severely bleeding and dying.Even the village health worker,Baofeng is quite anxious about how to stitch up his open wound,lacking both surgical needle and thread.Extremely in time,Huzhu"cleverly took a pin from her blouse"(Mo,2015,p.320)and says,"'How about a strand of my hair,would that work?'...My hair has capillaries in it"(p.320).Everybody in Northeast Gaomi Township and every reader of the book know how rare and invaluable Huzhu's miraculous hair is.People all reckon that"'your hair ought to be reserved for the likes of Golden Boy and Jade Girl,not a pig'" (p.320).Nevertheless,Huzhu only regards it as being worth no more than that of an ox or a horse.She sees everything in the universe equal.And she doesn't love seeing harmless animals bleed innocently (Verne,2021).She pulls out two strands of her most mysterious and most valuable hair in the world and threads one of them without hesitation.Diao Xiaosan's wound stops bleeding and his heartbeat regains its strength and rhythm.Huzhu's miraculous hair plays a major role in the recovery of Diao Xiaosan.

Thanks to the linkage of Huzhu's miraculous hair,harmony between man and nature emerges.Huzhu"pulled me up to her,where she gently rubbed my belly"(Mo,2015,p.227).When she sees the newly-born piglet eat his mother's milk,she claps her hands and laughs happily and excitedly,her charming youthful face glowing like a cockscomb flower.Being with this new life in nature,Huzhu strongly feels the calling of the mother nature.In the tranquility of nature which is shown in the "so delicious,so fragrant,like silk,like love itself,so wonderful" (p.227) milk,Huzhu seems to be on the way to her self-realization in nature."She was so gentle.It felt wonderful...I squealed"(p.222),"I sort of purred,it felt so good,I couldn't help it" (p.227),this new comer of nature deliciously entertains the first warmth,femininity and gentility of a human being in his life.Doubtless,readers are able to feel the thick harmony between man and nature.

The Miraculous Hair,the Linkage Between Man and Man

Huzhu's miraculous hair inLife and Death Are Wearing me Outmainly links Huzhu and Jiefang and the fate of the whole novel and Big-head,Lan Qiansui.

The peculiar hair of Huzhu is just like the matchmaker God,Yuelao's red line uniting persons in marriage.However,this strip of red line between Huzhu and Jiefang is very long.Jiefang has liked Huzhu a lot since they are little kids,"Huzhu and I had grown up together.We'd played together on the riverbank,naked as the day we were born"(Mo,2015,p.166).When Jiefang becomes a younster,his love for Huzhu is in bud,"How could they know love burned in my heart? I was secretly in love with…Huzhu" (p.143),"I was enchanted by Huang Huzhu's long braid,and from that became enchanted by her.I drifted into a fantasy world,wishing…let me marry Huzhu"(pp.189-190).When he knows that his elder brother,Jinlong and Huzhu have fallen in love and they have had affairs,he is completely shocked and in agony,"Jiefang thrust out his neck,the way he might if an invisible fist had landed on his chest,right above the heart...he let loose with a loud wail and threw himself down on the groun...I never imagined this incident would cause Lan Jiefang such anguish"(pp.282-283).He is in great panic and even becomes mad.His marriage with Huzhu's younger sister against his own will totally smashes his wish toward Huzhu.From then on,Jiefang has fallen into his miserable marriage.When Huzhu is in her middle age,she is alone again and she is extremely lonely and pitiful.It cannot be said that she doesn't like Jiefang at all.They are childhood sweethearts.When Kaifang,Jiefang's son and Huzhu's nephew would like to bring them together,certain mysterious affections begin to yawn in the hearts of those two,especially in Huzhu's.It is Huzhu's miraculous hair in the end shatters all the shyness of theirs,"Jiefang's first love has been Huang Huzhu...it was her hair he'd falleng in love with...the two of them were able to walk through life together"(p.519).After dinner one spring evening with a light rain,their hands touch while they are clearing the table.Something happens to their mood and their eyes meet.Huzhu gently asks Jiefang to comb her hair for her.He follows her into her room.He begins to comb her hair which has been carefully removed from her heavy hairnet,"her miraculous hair fell like waves all the way to the floor.For the first time in his life my friend was able to touch hair that he had admired from afar since his youth" (p.519).He holds her hair that is like a train of a bride solemnly and exhilaratedly.With her yes,he parts the hair and Huzhu kneels on the bed to wait for his arrival.They especially Huzhu who knows the secrets of the ecological mother thoroughly love this position because they know wise man assists everything according to natural regulations and never forces them to go under his own intentions(Lao,2002).With the linkage of Huzhu's hair,the couple eventually gain yes from each other.This yes draws a perfect circle in whichyinandyangcheck and balance harmoniously.The Tai-chi mandala appears in their lovemaking position at last linked by Huzhu's miraculous hair in between."If you can operateyinandyang,turning them suitably,then naturally all at once clouds will form and rain will full,the plants and trees refreshed,the mountain rivers flowing freely...This is the great cycle(Cleary,1991,pp.58-59),integrity and harmony has formed.

The last reincarnation of Ximen Nao is Lan Qiansui who is also called Big-head.This boy is "the teller of this tale,small but endowed with an air of sophistication,three feet tall"(Mo,2015,p.19),"his head...was so much larger than either his age or his body (p.109)".With all the memories of the donkey,the ox,the pig,the dog and the monkey,Big-head has the world-weary and disconsolate composite expression incorporating of the five all the time.He is the son of Kaifang and Pang Fenghuang who are close cousins.Chuang Tzu says ifyinandyangare operating abnormally,four seasons will go to a mess (Lao,2002).Maybe,that is why his parents die accidentally and he has a strange cureless bleeding disease which the doctors call hemophilia.His deformity appearance and illness look like labels of all the chaos and miseries of his forefathers and a sort of punishment to his forefathers'sins.Even though he has come from Ximen Nao's spirit without hatred.It seems that Mo Yan wants to contend that it is very hard for humans to shake off all hatred and sin.Nonetheless,Huzhu's miraculous hair is capable of working as the only emergency treatment,"when he bled,Huang Huzhu pulled a hair from her head,turned it to ashes under a flame,and put some of it in his milk and sprinkled the rest over the injury"(Mo,2015,p.539),"His fingers were bleeding profusely.I handed him the medicine I'd prepared beforehand.He rubbed it on his fingers,stopping the bleeding at once" (p.165).So the boy's life is tied inextrically to Huzhu's miraculous hair.The hair is the combination of nature and man.It is the linkage between Huzhu and Big-head,the linkage between Big-head and the big family and the promising thread of the whole story.It symbolizes that nature and man and man and man cannot be separated and they are firmly linked like blood and flesh.It means that the relationship between nature and man and man and man must go with the law of nature.It is the thread that can weave all reincarnations of Ximen Nao together.The fine capillaries in Huzhu's miraculous hair sends life and hope to this poor boy,"as long as the hair held out,the boy would live;when it was gone,he would die.In this case,the heavens took pity,for the more hair she pulled out,the more hair grew in.So we needn't worry that the boy will die young"(p.539).Huzhu's miraculous hair plays the role of a kind of adjustment of Big-head's deformed and miserable fate,making the queer fate in accordance with the natural law."My story begins on January 1,1950" (p.1),"'My story begins on January 1,1950...''' (p.540),Mo Yan's story begins with and ends in the same words.They lead the tension ofyinandyangin the story narrated by Big-head.They form a Tai-chi mandala."At that moment,fireworks lit up the sky of Gaomi County's new century,the first of a new millennium.The baby was a millennium boy"(p.540),Big-head becomes the new hope of the story.There are no ends of mandalas.In them,yinandyangrise and descend,checking and balancing,moving ceaselessly to give new births,generating harmony all the way.

The Miraculous Hair,the Linkage Between Man and Himself/Herself

Huzhu and Jiefang,those poor guys in the story,are able to walk through life together at last with the help of the linkage of Huzhu's miraculous hair.Meanwhile,linked by the hair,the two of them enable to integrate with their own souls harmoniously in the end.When spirits gain the One,they will become efficacious(Zou,2003).

When she is a young lady,Huzhu is furiously attracted by Jinlong's masculinity.She assumes that she has found her true love and marries him happily.However,that marriage becomes the beginning of her tragic life.She knows not knowing Tao and acting wildly is the source of danger(Lao,2002).She cannot be pregnant.Her adopted son who appears to be a perfect obedient handsome boy turns out to be a hooligan is stabbed to death when he is only a young man.Her so called glorious and beloved husband gives birth to a girl with his mistress.Having seen and been tortured by all the chaos and pains of the boasting farce pig-raising program in the Cultural Revolution,the crazy construction of the illegal resort and all kinds of evil business in the early stage of the Reform and Opening,Huzhu is completely disappointed with her husband.The explosion caused by Hong Taiyue takes her husband's life.So she becomes a sad and lonely widow like a dry nut with all her talents gone.She is in despair.Only when she is able to encourage herself to hand her comb to Jiefang and remove her heavy hairnet can she go back to her own soul harmoniously."Starting tonight,we can be human again..." (Mo,2015,p.538),her emotional tears and sigh declares her cry of"Lord Almighty,that's enough,that's enough"(Verne,2021),releasing her painful soul to her original pure and sacred Self.

Jiefang,with a blue birthmark on his face is considered ugly all the time.He has been bullied by his elder brother since he was a little boy.He has to get married against his own will.Even though he finds his true love and elopes bravely with his woman,he has to compensate with his family,his high-ranking position and the lives of his beloved and his unborn baby.This poor widower seems to be the most miserable one in the world at that moment.While he is touching Huzhu's hair for the first time,he senses"A delicate citronella fragrance filled his nostrils and reached deep down into his soul"(Mo,2015,p.519).A kind of miserable harmony flows in a real sobbing soul,totally immersed in this sort of sacred music (Verne,2021).His tears falls on her hair "like drops of water splashing on the feathers of Mandarin ducks,and rolled off onto the floor" (Mo,2015,p.519).He parts the hair "like a man walking through the hanging branches of a weeping willow,not stopping until he'd reached his destination" (pp.519-520).Scooping up Huzhu's hair in one arm and with great care and immense tenderness,Jiefang is able to untie his soul and himself and allow them unite harmoniously once again.

Conclusion

As a true son of the ecological mother,Mo Yan shows the universe his unique ecological flavors in his books.No doubt,those flavors are of a large number of values for the world.In hisLife and Death Are Wearing me Out,Mo Yan creates Huzhu's miraculous hair.This magic hair acts as the miraculous linkage between nature and man,between man and man and between man and himself/herself.With the linkage,yin and yang check and balance,moving ceaselessly in the ecological system,giving new birth and generating harmony all the time.The ecological significance of Huzhu's miraculous hair in Mo Yan'sLife and Death Are Wearing meOut analyzed in this paper is bound to arouse more interest of readers to dig out more ecological elements in Mo Yan's works.