Shibei Shen
Queen’s University Belfast
Abstract
This article explores the transformation of the ghost (gui, 鬼) in Chinese literature from the late imperial to the early modern period, arguing that this shift reflects deeper cultural, political, and epistemological ruptures in modern Chinese history. In Qing dynasty fiction, ghosts often functioned as extra-legal arbiters of justice, reinforcing Confucian moral codes and aligning with the cosmological and social hierarchies of the time. With the introduction of Western science, rationalism, and reformist ideologies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ghosts came under intellectual scrutiny. Figures such as Chen Duxiu and Lu Xun recast the ghost not as a transcendent moral agent but as a metaphor for political oppression, societal decay, and psychological fragmentation. By tracing the ghost’s descent from supernatural judge to object of critique, this study demonstrates how the spectral became a site of negotiation between tradition and modernity, superstition and science, and cultural identity and national reform.
Keywords: Ghosts, Chinese modernity, Qing fiction, New Culture Movement, superstition and science
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