Wildness-Humanity-Naturalness: On the Writing of Animals in Bi Feiyu's Novels

Representing and expressing animals in nature through words is one of the literary traditions in ancient and modern times. The writing of animals in New Period literature has emerged as a remarkable literary phenomenon in the history of contemporary Chinese literature. This paper focuses on the novels of Bi Feiyu, a significant "late-generation" writer of New Period literature. It analyzes the various aspects and connotations of his animal writing from two basic themes: the countryside and the city. In his rural novels, animals carry the trauma and fear of the era, symbolize the imagination of freedom, and reveal the distortion of human nature by power. In urban novels, animals reflect the mental illnesses of urban residents. Meanwhile, through the comparison with other two writers with outstanding manifestations in animal writing, considering the author's self-expression regarding animals, humans, life, and humanity, this paper explores how animals, as literary devices, integrate with the author's growth experience and life, thus forming Bi Feiyu's unique animal writing centered around humanity.