Analysis of Ah Cheng’s Novella “The Chess Master”

Zhong Ahcheng (钟阿城) is the pseudonym of Ah Cheng. He is a contemporary novelist, scriptwriter, and painter. His famous trilogy of work is: King of Children, King of Chess, and King of Trees. The ‘King of Chess’ was recently retranslated as The Chess Master by W. J. F. Jenner.
The focus of the paper at hand is The King of Chess: The Chess Master. It pictures characters as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement which occurred after the Cultural Revolution. The Down to the Countryside Movement was a policy led by Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result of the movement, a great number of privileged urban youth were sent to mountainous areas and farming villages to learn skills from the farmers and workers there.
The Cultural Revolution also known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a sociopolitical movement launched by Mao Zedong in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in 1966. The aim of the Cultural Revolution was to preserve Chinese Communism and eradicate capitalism from Chinese society.
In this sociopolitical context, The King of Chess was written from the point of view of an unnamed narrator. It describes the character Wang Yisheng and what drives him to play Chinese Chess: xiangqi. Xiangqi is a strategy board game for two players. It is commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess. It is the most popular strategy board in China.
The game is a battle between two armies. Its main principle is to checkmate the enemy’s general (king). Areas on the board are called the river and palace, which enhances the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines. Xiangqi game is played on a board nine lines wide and ten lines long. The Chess Master was very popular in Chinese society. The literary work was well regarded by scholars and critics.
The story takes place in China between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Two young intellectuals: the unnamed narrator and the xiangqi player Wang Yisheng are among the wide array of youth sent to work on farms in the mountains. During their ride to the mountains, playing xiangqi was the topic of Wang and his friend’s talk. Wang talked about how he evolved his strategies in xiangqi.
Wang’s family is poor. His mother disapproved of his xiangqi playing habit. But, Wang loved xiangqi, and was very devoted to it. One day, while he was gathering garbage that he sells, Wang met a man: a xiangqi master. That meeting was a blessing to Wang. The xiangqi master taught Wang all the secrets of xiangqi. He taught him the principles of Daoism and everything he knew about xiangqi.
The present paper presents an investigation into the characterization and use of tropes and how they shape the overall style of the very literary work. The King of Chess lends itself to a deep literary analysis at various levels. I am going to examine the techniques used by Cheng to draw the picture of Wang and shape his spiritual transformation in the countryside.
The paper at hand displays the narrative, its language, and the author’s perspective, within its intellectual, cultural, and political contexts. The paper draws upon a thorough analytical exploration.
Cultural ...