Ways of Knowing in Fortress Besieged

Fortress Besieged was written by Qian Zhongshu, published in 1947, and is widely considered one of the masterpieces of twentieth century Chinese literature. The novel is a humorous tale about middle-class Chinese society in the late 1930s. The book was begun while Qian Zhongshu and his wife Yang Jiang were living in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation.

 

I read it for my extended essay. After finishing reading, I found that it is really interesting book and reflects some characteristics of Chinese society. Surely, there are some ways of knowing appears in the different sections of book.

 

Sense perception plays an important role. Sense perception as the main ways of knowing in Chinese society in modern times also shows the negative aspects of Chinese cultural in which author against. For example, the main character of this book Fang Hongjian told the girl who loves him that he isn’t so sure that they can get married, he has to go to meet the girl his family like. In ancient China, free marriage was not allowed from society and it was appalling if a couple do it. Fang Hongjian finally rejects the girl who loves him because his sense perception tells him that they can’t get married.

 

Another ways of knowing I found in the book is emotion. When Fang Hongjian owns his first formal job in which is a philosophy professor of a new founded college. He goes to the college but there is no philosophy major in the first year. So that head teacher lets him help English professor to teach English. After he is “demoted”, he found that the people who come with him together change their attitude and emotion when they talk with him. The change of emotion makes him know that he is disparaged from other people, so he doesn’t talk to his colleague and it makes him doesn’t have other friends.

 

In addition, reason is the other ways of knowing in which appear in the book. Fang Hongjian knows that he is disparaged from other people because his academic diploma is fake.

 

All in all, there are many ways of knowing are explored in this book, and they play different roles under different situations.