For my project, I’d like to propose an idea of a story. The theme will be about the fear of reproduction from a young female point of view. The story will be set in modern times, within a cultural background that’s heavily influenced by Confucianism. Derived from mostly my personal experience and my observation, in this story pregnancy will be seen as a disease, an unwanted invasion, a pathological condition by the main character. She will experience immense fear and anxiety regarding this topic, and will unintentionally become both the victim and the perpetrator of a somehow socially accepted violence and sexual abuse.
Instead of proceeding with traditional storytelling methods, this story will consist of random one-page moments and each page with no more than six panels. These moments are going to be discontinuous in the sense of time. Each of them will be separated from the others, as in the events happening in each page will be isolated, with no consequence, no responsibility. In a way, these moments will be static, with no foreseeable progression or reference from the past. The only movement that’s going to tie them together, will be the readers’ unconscious action of turning each page. Readers’ are going to experience the moments in a timely fashion only because of socially constructed reading habits or norms. The order of each moment will be arranged by me. So as the author, I will be manipulating the readers into being complicit in violence and abuse. It is the readers’ underthought action that forced the main character into a horrendous conclusion. She will be impregnated by socially constructed notions in both the reality and the story.
But ultimately, the fear of propagation and impregnation becomes the metaphor for the fear of expressing and creating. It becomes the fear of conceiving, of thinking. Illness in this project as a metaphor for pregnancy emphasizes the betrayal of the body, the unwanted but uncontrollable pathological pain, and the isolation or exclusion of the patient from society (patriarchy). But pregnancy as a metaphor of creating emphasize the betrayal of mind, the unwanted but spontaneous contemplation, and the isolation of the simplified Chinese language from the world.
Siyi An