From Politics of Location to Its De-politicization in One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian

Abstract

Drawing on the Deleuzian theory of de-territorialization of the subject from the center of power, this article picks up the controversy regarding Gao Xingjian’s misogyny with reference to his second novel One Man’s Bible and presents an alternative perspective on his gender treatment. With the help of textual analysis, it contends that far from being anti-feminist as is generally assumed in critical circles, Gao is gender neutral, and allows the same subjective agency to woman as man. Both male and female protagonists in the novel tend to hegemonize each other on the basis of their location in the geo-political or socio-cultural scale of power until each dislocates from his/her power base to undergo a qualitative transformation that changes their world view. It is their minority position which helps them surmount their tendency to hegemonize or minoritize the other and thus to become “minortarian.”