Voices from the Other Side: Exploring Nonhuman Agents and Their Narrative Function in the Zhuangzi ROMAIN GRAZIANI Abstract In the history of Chinese literature, the Zhuangzi authors were the first to grant a voice to diverse forms of life, among them a snake, a tree, a dead man, a divine turtle, and even the wind. What exactly is the interest of incorporating nonhuman protagonists in brief literary fictions? Was there something at stake when trying out this pioneering narrative technique, or was it just for the sake of literary innovation and entertainment? Through a detailed analysis of a set of concise narratives, this study uncovers a consistent critique of the religious institutions (chiefly divination and sacrifice), as well as the economic practices prevalent during the Warring States period. It aims to demonstrate that the Zhuangzi’s comprehensive critique of the Zhou cultural order achieves its “hearability” through a recurrent use of striking dualities, including day and night, dream and wakefulness, and humans and nonhumans. A heretofore silent and passive community of living beings raises its voice and is able to challenge the well-established discourse proclaiming human sovereignty over the natural world. These voices and the themes they raise serve, among other things, as a literary strategy intended to illuminate the universality of violence and the criminal essence of human culture (wen 文). Keywords divination, sacrifice, animals, legal violence, environmental history The Zhuangzi inaugurates a long literary tradition of narratives featuring non- human interlocutors, from the tiny wily snake in the Han Feizi 韓非子 1 to the Xiyouji’s 西遊記 (Journey to the West) picaresque tandem of Sun Wukong 孫悟 空 and his crony Zhu Bajie 豬八戒 (Pigsy). Indeed, not only are these nonhuman beings, in the chapters collectively ascribed to Zhuang Zhou 莊周 (trad. 369– 286 BCE), the objects of keen descriptions, be they weasels, monkeys, or horses, The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture • 11:1 • April 2024 DOI 10.1215/23290048-11118538 • Ó 2024 by Duke University Press 22 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/jclc/article-pdf/11/1/22/2104375/22graziani.pdf?guestAccessKey=42051b25-fdc7-45a3-b189-fac88f8fd38a by guest on 28 June 2024