Overview of Mao Dun's Spring Silkworms | Generated by AI
Question: Introduce Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms” in English
Answer:
Spring Silkworms (《春蚕》) is a famous short story written by Mao Dun (茅盾), one of the most important realist writers in modern Chinese literature. It was first published in 1932 and is widely regarded as a classic work of 1930s Chinese leftist literature.
Main Content
The story is set in a small rural village in Zhejiang province during the early 1930s. It follows the life of an old peasant named Old Tongbao (老通宝) and his family during one silkworm-raising season.
The family invests all their savings and labor into raising silkworms, hoping for a good harvest to repay debts and improve their living conditions. Through hard work and careful care, they manage to produce an excellent cocoon harvest — the best in years. However, due to the global economic depression, the collapse of the silk market, and exploitation by merchants and cocoon buyers, the price of cocoons falls dramatically. In the end, the family earns almost nothing and falls even deeper into poverty.
Core Theme
The story powerfully shows the tragic contradiction in semi-colonial, semi-feudal Chinese rural society during the 1930s:
- “Good harvest, bad life” (丰收成灾 / bumper harvest leads to ruin)
The harder the peasants work and the better their harvest, the poorer they become.
It criticizes:
- Exploitation by comprador merchants and cocoon factory owners
- The destructive impact of the world capitalist economic crisis on Chinese peasants
- The helplessness and suffering of small farmers under the old social system
Literary Significance
- One of the most representative works of China’s “socialist realism” and rural literature in the 1930s
- Uses very detailed, realistic描写 (描写) of the silkworm-raising process
- Creates vivid characters, especially the hardworking, traditional, yet somewhat superstitious Old Tongbao
- Employs a restrained but deeply sympathetic narrative style
- Often studied together with Mao Dun’s other famous novella Midnight (《子夜》) to show urban vs. rural economic crises
Spring Silkworms remains a classic text in Chinese literature classes and is frequently used to understand the social and economic conditions of rural China in the 1930s.
References:
- None (general literary knowledge)