The Gothic in Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants and Its Implications in the Post-Truth Age.
Set in Muddy River, a fictional, generic town in China in the late 1970s, Yiyun Li’s novel The Vagrants opens with the denunciation ceremony of a young dissenter, Gu Shan, and provides a panorama of the townspeople’s perception of and reaction to this event. This article reads Li’s work through the...
| Publicado en: | Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 37 - 54 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=190561945&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 190561945 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 19853106 5EWG jtl: Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature issn: 19853106 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 19 iid: 2 pid: 44508 pub: Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature artinfo: ui: 190561945 10.31436/asiatic.v19i2.3946 ppf: 37 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 2.4MB tig: atl: The Gothic in Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants and Its Implications in the Post-Truth Age. aug: au: Kang, Mengni affil: Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau SAR. su: Gothic architecture Gothic altars Denunciation (Criminal law) sug: subj: Gothic architecture Gothic altars Denunciation (Criminal law) keyword: emotional appeal post-truth. perspectivism The Gothic Yiyun Li ab: Set in Muddy River, a fictional, generic town in China in the late 1970s, Yiyun Li’s novel The Vagrants opens with the denunciation ceremony of a young dissenter, Gu Shan, and provides a panorama of the townspeople’s perception of and reaction to this event. This article reads Li’s work through the lens of the Gothic, first examining how the tropes of graphic violence and ghosts reveal undercurrents of Muddy River that elude the official discourse. It further argues that the narrative’s Gothicism lies in its multiple perspectives. In this regard, the focus on social outsiders and their localised, personal experiences highlights the tension between centre and margin, totality and alterity. Using The Vagrants as an illustration, the study also explores the relevance of literature in the current age of post-truth. It contends that literature’s capacity to cultivate critical faculties, which are important in combating post-truth, is realised through Li’s particular Gothic approach. While emotional appeal and perspectivism are utilised by post-truth rhetors to disseminate biases, in Li’s hands, they function positively to promote reflection and slow reading. The novel demonstrates the importance of literary reading in an era of dishonesty and misinformation. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature is the property of Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature holder: Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language & Literature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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