Culture Prison: The Redemption Within Two Walls: An Interpretation of Ashi’s Duor

Abstract

Based on the gender metaphor of man-woman difference, the cultural concepts of “home-country isomorphism” and “the unity of male and female” have produced one hidden trend and one manifest trend that have overlapped and formed a piece of political, cultural and educational fabric. In this way, an unsurpassable culture prison is established. The gender metaphor of man-woman difference exterminates the spiritual and emotional elements within conjugal union, namely, the “rare” in “How rare it is that human is different from beasts”， thus makes the political, cultural and educational system an inhuman and oppressive system, which has caused human sufferings full of tears and blood. Due to the double closedness of this system, it is impossible to transcend it once being placed in it. The transcending force can only come from outside the fabric: first, it comes from the constant influence of enlightenment to awaken the consciousness of humanity and subjectivity within human persons; second, more fundamentally, it comes from the listening to the holy voice from heaven, which is the final source of spirit and freedom. The short novel “Duor” by Ashi is like an epic, which heavily, peacefully and shockingly describes the cruelty within the culture prison, narrates the agony of the ones unfortunately have fallen in it. Sadly but solemnly and holily, this novel reveals that suffering comes from the love for spirit and freedom, and suffering is the way human persons defeat suffering, obtain redemption and finally reach the heaven of love.