THE CARNIVALESQUE WORLD IN MA JIAN’S NOVEL “THE CHINA DREAM” : DECONSTRUCTION OF IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the novel China Dream (2018) by the prominent Chinese dissident writer Ma Jian, focusing on the carnivalesque poetics and the specific features of the artistic deconstruction of political ideologemes. The relevance of the study is determined by the thematic concerns of Ma Jian’s work, which addresses issues of memory, historical trauma, ideological utopianism, and totalitarian resurgence–topics that have remained at the center of global humanities discourse in recent decades. The aim of the research is to identify the peculiarities of the deconstruction of contemporary Chinese ideological discourse in Ma Jian’s novel China Dream through an analysis of artistic techniques used to construct a carnivalesque world. Particular attention is paid to the image of the protagonist, the Party bureaucrat Ma Daode, whose moral corruption and inner emptiness function as a means of exposing the erosion of the contemporary bureaucratic environment. The study provides a detailed analysis of the scenography of the nightclub “Hongweibing,” where the sacral symbols of the Cultural Revolution are juxtaposed with the space of commercialized corporeality. This collision between the elevated ideological myth and base reality is interpreted as a manifestation of grotesque poetics, producing the effect of a “disturbing unity” of incompatible elements. Drawing on the theories of J. Derrida and M. Holquist, the article demonstrates that Ma Jian employs carnivalesque inversion and parody to deconstruct established hierarchies and binary oppositions. Through kitsch quotation and grotesque poetics, authoritative political discourse is reduced to the level of simulacra devoid of their original ethical content. The study also examines the composition of the selected chapter, structured according to the principle of montage of fragments of reality, memories, and stream of consciousness, which intensifies the sense of grotesque delirium. Special attention is given to the role of historical allusions and irony as mechanisms of semantic doubling that connect past experience with contemporary political reality. The conclusions emphasize that the novel functions as a form of artistic resistance to state-imposed “amnesia,” underscoring the importance of recovering historical truth for overcoming collective trauma.