The Carnival Images in Gao Xingjian’s Plays: Study on Weekend Quartet, Snow in August, and The Man Who Questions Death

Through his experiments in theatre, Gao Xingjian looks for a better approach to exhibit the human world. The theatre form, to Gao, is the expression to expose his personal thoughts. Thus, Gao’s theatrical esthetics cannot be separated from his philosophical thoughts. To study Gao’s plays means a research of both his theatre and philosophy. he Without-ism of Gao echoes Bakhtin’s carnival theory. Their different literal expressions embrace actually the same values: to dissolve the ideology of a unique centre, to emphasize the real life, and to try to indicate a way out from the noises of postmodern nihilism. his thesis is to analyze how Gao’s plays follow his precedent theatre and philosophy history. By reviewing Gao’s firsthand unpublished writings, I will examine how the playwright demonstrates his own thoughts through his theatre practice. I will also use Bakhtin’s philosophical observations as reference to Gao’s theory, in order to explain how the playwright conveys the carnival spirit in his works. Three later plays of Gao are my research objects: Weekends Quartet, Snow in August, and The Man Who Questions Death.