Lu Dinglian
Abstract: This article focuses on the character Tian Jianguo in Xu Zhuoliang’s novel ZelanZelan: Dr. Du Yusheng, arguing that he is not a flat antagonist but rather the personification of power rationality, modern desire, and pragmatic philosophy. The paper analyzes this complex character from three dimensions: First, as both an “enlightener” and a “predator,” he coldly assimilates Du Yusheng into the system using the logic of power. Second, as a “pragmatist philosopher,” he is the perfect product of systemic alienation, internalizing hypocrisy into a sophisticated survival skill. Finally, the radical development he promotes is structurally homologous with the novel's core imagery, “purple crofton weed” (Ageratina adenophora), both serving as metaphors for the prosperity and destruction brought by modern expansion. The article further situates Tian Jianguo within the genealogy of world literature, comparing him with classic “ambitious upstarts” like Julien Sorel and Eugène de Rastignac, revealing his unique value: Tian Jianguo represents an evolution from romantic rebellion and clear-eyed opportunism to the complete self-instrumentalization of “de-spiritualization.” His character constitutes a literary judgment on the profound alienation in contemporary society where the soul falls utterly silent in the face of power.
Keywords: Zelan Zelan: Dr. Du Yusheng; power rationality; pragmatism; The Red and the Black; Old Man Goriot
In Xu Zhuoliang’s novel Zelan Zelan: Dr. Du Yusheng, Tian Jianguo is by no means a simple villain or a functional supporting character. He is the central figure running through the latter half of Du Yusheng’s fate, the crucial gear that drives the novel’s narrative towards greater depth. His image is the personification of power rationality, modern desire, and pragmatic philosophy; a dark mirror reflecting Du Yusheng’s tragic fate; and, more importantly, a significant sample through which the author dissects the spiritual symptoms of our time.
1. The Enlightener and the Predator: The Cold Transmission of Power Logic
Tian Jianguo first appears in the posture of an “enlightener,” forcibly intervening in Du Yusheng’s life after a chance encounter on a slow train. However, his enlightenment does not guide Du Yusheng towards light but drags him into the murky depths of power operations.
The Cruel Lesson of “Truth”:
In the famous “officialdom enlightenment” by the swimming pool, he bluntly points out that one must “not only learn to tell lies but also be skilled at telling lies,” and equates the professional essence of officials and prostitutes as “selling out” (Xu Zhuoliang 204). This discourse strips politics of all its warm moral veneer, exposing its cold core as an art of power exchange and performance. He plays the role of a “mentor” who theorizes and makes explicit the system’s hidden rules, aiming to make Du Yusheng, this “talented woman,” rapidly “mature” into a qualified and useful “cog” within the system, ready to take his place. This kind of enlightenment carries a strong sense of spiritual conquest.
The Operationalization of Emotion as Power:
His attraction to and possession of Du Yusheng is itself a practice of his power philosophy. Du Yusheng’s “admiration” for his abilities and subsequent surrender to his embrace mark Du Yusheng’s shift from following pure knowledge (represented by Yang Yusheng) to attaching herself to worldly power (represented by Tian Jianguo). Tian Jianguo successfully bundles his personal charisma with his power status, accomplishing the dual recruitment of Du Yusheng’s emotions and career, making her an extension of his own power.
2. The Pragmatist Philosopher: The Perfect Product of Systemic Alienation
Tian Jianguo is not merely an official; he is, more profoundly, a deeply pessimistic “pragmatist philosopher.” His worldview reveals the extreme alienation of humanity by the system.
The Master of the “Nihilists Who Put on a Show” (Lu Xun, Wild Grass):
His philosophy of “making lying a career, to the point where you believe it yourself” represents the pinnacle of what Lu Xun criticized as “nihilists who put on a show.” He not only perceives the hypocrisy of the system but also internalizes this hypocrisy as a sophisticated survival skill and tool for advancement. In him, we see no internal struggle, only a cold, skillful mastery of applying the rules. He is the “perfect product” screened and shaped by the system.
The Black Abyss of Existentialism:
His pronouncements belong to the same lineage as the black humor in Wang Xiaobo’s works, yet appear more despairing. While Wang Xiaobo retains a hint of rebellious wit in his deconstruction, Tian Jianguo’s philosophy contains only naked exchange and survival. He instrumentalizes human value, reifies the soul, and profoundly points out the existential absurdity individuals may face within the modern bureaucratic system: that the most “successful” adaptation comes precisely at the cost of the greatest degree of self-loss.
3. The Zealous Driver of the Modernity Project: Implicit Homology with Purple Crofton Weed
The image of Tian Jianguo forms a deep structural homology with the novel’s core imagery, “purple crofton weed” (Ageratina adenophora), together metaphorizing the consequences of modernity’s frenzied advance.
The Logic of Expansion:
Just as purple crofton weed “invades” the living space of native plants with its formidable vitality, the development plan Tian Jianguo promotes—“seven dams, four ring roads around the lake, massive real estate”—is a forceful “invasion” and transformation of natural landscapes and traditional society. Both represent a powerful force pursuing infinite expansion and superficial prosperity, regardless of ecological and social costs.
Creators of Prosperity and Destruction:
Purple crofton weed brings purple profusion but also decay and black death; the projects Tian Jianguo spearheads bring temporary political achievements and economic growth but also sow the seeds of ecological collapse (dam failure) and social upheaval (land storm). Both are composites of creation and destruction, their periods of glory precisely the incubation periods for their tragedies.
4. The Hub and Prisoner within the Power Network
However, Tian Jianguo is not an omnipotent god. His character also possesses tragic dimensions; he is both a hub within the power network and its prisoner.
Agent of the System:
His promotions and his crises (his precarious position during the land storm) indicate that he, too, is merely a pawn within a larger power structure. The rules he teaches Du Yusheng may ultimately backfire on him, as the saying goes, “grasping for a bigger seal only to find oneself shackled.”
The Lingering Shadow of Humanity:
When he falls into crisis and needs Du Yusheng to save him by submitting to Ma Hongjun, this plot point exposes the fragility of his power philosophy—he still relies on more primitive, more sordid power-rent-seeking relationships. In this moment, he falls from a cold enlightener to a mere mortal in need of rescue, exposing his own limitations.
Tian Jianguo is an extremely successfully crafted, complex character in Zelan Zelan. He is the embodiment of power, the wizard of modernity, and also a sacrifice to the system. With his sharp ruthlessness, he provides us with a key to dissecting the ecology of officialdom and the paradoxes of modernization; his own fate also reveals the abyss that individuals and communities may face on a pragmatic path lacking value guidance. Through this character, Xu Zhuoliang not only criticizes a certain power philosophy but also completes a profound inquiry into the core driving forces of contemporary society: when “development” and “power” themselves become the sole faith, are the sacrificed ecology, alienated souls, and sullied emotions the inescapable cost paid by all?
Placing Tian Jianguo within the gallery of classic “ambitious upstart” characters in world literature allows us to see his unique literary value and the imprint of his era more clearly.
5. A Comparison of Tian Jianguo with Julien Sorel and Rastignac
In the genealogy of world literature, there is no shortage of “ambitious upstart” figures who attempt to break through their own class and climb towards the pinnacle of power. The Tian Jianguo created by Xu Zhuoliang can engage in a fascinating dialogue with Julien Sorel from Stendhal’s The Red and the Black and Eugène de Rastignac from Balzac’s Old Man Goriot. Through comparison, we can see how the interactive relationship between personal ambition and power structures has undergone profound evolution from 19th-century Europe to contemporary China. TianJianguo is a highly representative “product of our times” within this evolution.
Julien Sorel (The Red and the Black) is a romantic hero and prisoner.
Core Motivation: Julien’s ambition is a mixture of Napoleonic heroic dreams and the intense hatred and rebellion of a lower-class youth against the aristocracy. His goal is to cross the class divide, winning dignity and recognition.
Means and Inner World: He uses hypocrisy and love as rungs on the ladder, but his heart is always full of fierce struggle, remorse, and self-doubt. His love for Madame de Rênal ultimately awakens his genuine emotions, leading to tragedy.
Relationship with Power: He is full of violent conflict between spirit and flesh, ambition and innocence. Julien is a challenger and rebel against power. He attempts to enter the system but is, at his core, a romantic rebel, ultimately destroyed by the system because he cannot completely extinguish his conscience.
Eugène de Rastignac (Old Man Goriot) is a clear-eyed opportunist and compromiser.
Core Motivation: His ambition is more pragmatic and materialistic. Coming from the provinces to Paris, his goal is wealth and status.
Means and Inner World: His mentors, Madame de Beauséant and Vautrin, give him lessons in “extreme egoism” and “by any means necessary,” respectively. He also uses love, but his hypocrisy is more discerning) and composed. He experiences inner turmoil but ultimately chooses to bury his goodness and join the dark Parisian society. The novel’s ending, with his declaration to Paris, “À nous deux maintenant!” (“Now it’s between the two of us!”), marks the complete death of an innocent youth and the birth of a bourgeois ambitious upstart.
Relationship with Power: He is an apprentice and successful speculator in power. He sees through society's rules of the game and decides to use them without psychological burden. He ultimately becomes part of the world he once despised.
Tian Jianguo: The System Philosopher and Power Itself in the Post-Romantic Era.
Compared to the previous two, Tian Jianguo represents an entirely new stage. The last embers of romanticism are utterly extinguished in him.
Core Motivation: It is neither Julien’s rebellion for dignity nor Rastignac’s material acquisition, but a high degree of fascination with and desire to control the operation of power itself. What he pursues is not entering the system but becoming the efficient executor, even the embodiment, of the system’s will.
Means and Inner World: He elevates “hypocrisy” and “putting on a show” from a means to a philosophy and a career. He teaches Du Yusheng to “make lying a habit... to the point where you believe it yourself.” This goes a step further than Julien’s compelled hypocrisy and Rastignac’s clear-eyed compromise; it is a complete, systematic self-alienation and instrumentalization. In him, we see almost no inner struggle, only a cold, algorithm-like precision of operation.
Relationship with Power: He is no longer a challenger of power like Julien, nor a speculator in power like Rastignac, but the spokesperson and accomplice of power rationality. He himself is an efficient node within the power network. The modernity projects he promotes (dams, real estate) and his “enlightenment” of Du Yusheng are essentially the unfolding of the same power logic at different levels. He is a crucial, yet utterly cold, cog in the colossal machine of “development.”
Through this comparison, we can clearly discern a trajectory of “de-spiritualization” in the evolution of these characters: Julien Sorel → Eugène de Rastignac → Tian Jianguo. The romantic hero full of inner conflict → the clear-eyed youth who buries his conscience and embraces darkness → the post-modern power philosopher who completely instrumentalizes the self.
Tian Jianguo’s image suggests that in a highly bureaucratized, instrumental-rational modern society, the ultimate “success story” may no longer be those souls filled with passion and pain, but rather those who can completely silence their inner noise and perfectly integrate themselves into the system’s logic—the “non-human.” He no longer asks “Who am I?”; his existence is solely to make the system run more smoothly.
Conclusion
The tragedy of Tian Jianguo does not lie in his personal failure (he may even remain “successful”), but in what he symbolizes: the end of a certain human possibility. When ambition is no longer accompanied by inner storms, when success means the soul’s utter silence, then this very “success” is itself the most profound allegory of alienation belonging to our era. Through Tian Jianguo, Xu Zhuoliang not only portrays a character but also completes a literary judgment on a冷酷 (ruthless/cold) power philosophy pervasive in contemporary society.
Works Cited
Stendhal. The Red and the Black. Trans. Hao Yun, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2006.
Balzac. Old Man Goriot. Trans.Wang Zhensun, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2010.
Xu, Zhuoliang. Zelan Zelan: Dr. Du Yusheng. Chinese Culture Press, 2024.
The Author
Lu Dinglian, female. Member of the Shaanxi Writers Association. Author of SelectedReviews of Outstanding National Middle School Student Essays, the prose and criticism collection Walking Towards the Light (two volumes), the novel Lilac in Bloom. Invited to serve as the appreciation expert and reading/writing coach for the series An Li Lectures: New Chinese Reading and Writing OpenClass (six volumes, published). Co-compiler of over ten series totaling more than 20 teaching assistant books, including the Shaanxi local textbook Selected Quality Chinese Reading.
Email: yishui13399131450@qq.com