Of Lice and Men: A Parasitic Reading of Jia Pingwa's The Lantern Bearer

Taking Jia Pingwa's 2013 novel Daideng 帶燈 (The Lantern Bearer) as its focal point, this article considers a series of allusions to insects in this and other works. The article takes these references to insects in Jia's literary publications as a starting point for reflecting on a set of parasitic or supplementary relationships as they relate to an interrelated set of sociopolitical, ecological, and literary concerns. Through this attention to parasitic relationships, the article uses Jia Pingwa's works to pursue a critical reassessment of the relationship between individual entities and the sociopolitical, ecological, and literary collectives they inhabit.