Author Description

This dissertation, "Fiction and Human Rights Discourse in China: 1897-1927" by Sha, Li,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Late Qing () was a time of profound transformation in China. From 1897, political, economic and cultural changes began to intensify, and a human rights discourse gradually made its appearance. Literature profoundly changed as well. Fiction, which had been largely excluded from orthodox literature, started to acquire a prominent status. This thesis investigates the engagement of modern Chinese fiction with the human rights discourse from 1897 to 1927. It argues that modern Chinese fiction added momentum to the human rights discourse by presenting an individual-based perception of life and by disseminating human rights concepts. Fiction also provided an important critique of the human rights discourse by exposing the problems, limitations and dilemmas of human rights in the Chinese society. In the introduction, I provide a historical overview of the human rights discourse and the rise of modern fiction. Each chapter then focuses on one literary text and one specific right, and establishes a dialogue between them. In Chapter 1, I discuss the reception of the French novel The Lady of the Camellias in relation to the right to freedom of marriage. This novel depicts the destruction of love due to the interference of family authority. I discuss how its techniques of first-person narration, psychological depictions and epistolarity reinforced the novel's effect in evoking readers' empathy and sympathy towards people who lacked the freedom to marry, and therefore contribu