Speaker

He Hao

Host

Tang Xiaolin

Introduction

Ding Ling’s ‘In the Hospital’ was written in 1940. Her protagonist  Lu Ping was not a typical revolutionary, but an ordinary Chines ewoman without  revolutionary zeal, bitterness towards the homeland and its invaders, or a sense of community. Such people were not immersed in revolutionary ideas, but still yearned for a new life. Tracing how such Chinese can through revolutionary action penetrate others and reconstruct themselves can allow us not to bind ‘In the Hospital’ to the the context of ‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art’, but instead provide insight into the thrilling and thought-provoking scenes that took place in the backstreets of the revolution. We thus gain a greater understanding of how to self improve and reconstruct modern society under limited historical conditions.