3。2 The Dog Feeling Proud of Himself Almost Becomes-animal 11

4  The Success of Becoming-animal And The Return to Human  12

Conclusion 13

Acknowledgments 14

References 15

1 Introduction

1。1 Mo Yan and His literary World

Mo Yan, as the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, has a great impact both home and abroad。 Mo Yan is highly-productive and he has created 11 full-length novels, hundreds of medium-length novels and short stories so far。 In 1985, Mo Yan shocked the Chinese literary world with The Red Radish。 In the next year, The Red Sorghum, which was one of the works won Mo Yan the Nobel Prize, was published。 In the following years, Mo Yan continues to bring readers high-quality works and wins many awards。 In 1997, Mo Yan was awarded the Da Jia Literature Prize for Big Breasts and Wild Hips; in 2001, he won the Ding Jun Double Year Prize for Literature for Sandalwood Death and in 2008, Mo Yan got the the Mao Dun Literature Prize for Frog。 Apart from the prizes he wins nationally, Mo Yan also gets many international awards。 For example, he won the Laure Bataillin Prize of France in 2001 and the Nonino International Prize of Italy in 2005 for his The Republic of Wine。 As the research object of this thesis, Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out has won the most awards in the world for Mo Yan, including the Newman Prize For Chinese Literature in America, the Fukuoka Prize in Japan and the Nobel Price (Shao, 2013a)。 From+优|尔-论_文W网wWw.YouErw.com 加QQ752018.766

Reviewing Mo Yan’s works, it can be seen that animals are an important element in his writings, which is inseparable from his life experiences。 Mo Yan was born in Northeast Gaomi Township, where he lived as a farmer for 20 years。 The traditional culture of Mo Yan’s hometown, especially the influence of Pu Songling as well as the anecdotes and folk stories told among the local people become the resources of Mo Yan’s creation。 In his works, Pu Songling loves to express ideas through animals like the fox, wolf and wild goose, which deeply influences Mo Yan in whose works animals also play an important role。 Mo Yan left home for cities later, but the life experience in Northeast Gaomi Township permeated into his blood, becoming the infinite resource of his writing。 As a farmer, animals, especially livestock, are an inseparable part of daily life so there is a deep emotional link between humans and animals, which can partly explain the reason why the animal is a common image in Mo Yan’s works。 Mo Yan likes to establish a mutual-helpful and mutual-loving relationship between human beings and animals, but he does not view human interests as the only standard。 In his mind, every living thing in the world has its own norms (Zhang, 2012)。 As a result, animals in Mo Yan’s works tend to be smart, independent and free, especially in one of his masterpieces --- Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out。 This thesis will explore the English version of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out translated by Howard Goldblatt from the view of zoo-criticism to analyze the issue of ‘becoming animal’ as well as the classic scenes of animals which blurs the boundary between animals and humans。 

1。2 Literature Review

In China, previous papers mostly study on the book from the following perspectives。 First, the book is studied from the view of narrative strategy。 Depicting the great changes happening in the mainland of China during 1950s to 2000s from the view of animals is the unique narrative strategy adopted in Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out。 Gao (2008) says that in the book man’s soul goes into animal’s body and in the collision of man’s memories and feelings as well as animal’s instincts, a unique narrative subject is formed。 Li (2009) analyzes the changes of narrative views in detail。 Ximen Nao--- the protagonist of the book, first starts from the view of a complete human being, but later in the samsara, animality appears in his narrative view gradually until he turns into an animal from head to toes。 However the narrative view returns to a man again at the end of the book。 The shift of narrative view from man to animal and again back to man fully implies Mo Yan’s care to life and human beings。 Shao (2013b) compares the Chinese version of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out and the English one translated by Howard Goldblatt in narrative arts and concludes that the special narrative techniques used in the English version, including narrative metalepsis, paralipsis, and the cross-boundary phenomenon like that between the heterodiegetic and the homodiegetic, can explain the popularity of the English version of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out。