关键词: 抗日战争, 医疗叙事, 世界战时叙事, 巴金, 《寒夜》, 《第四病室》

Abstract: The health care of the Chinese society during the Anti-Japanese War is an important concern of Ba Jin's Cold Nights and Ward Four. This article sets the two novels in China's medical discourse, wartime social context and the tradition of wartime writing in world literatures, aiming to explore the features of Chinese health care strategy as represented in these two novels. This study finds that the health care strategy of Chinese society in the novel transformed from the model of improving the vitality of populations before the war to a form featuring “letting die” and “making die” politics. It not only shows that the Japanese invasion breaks down Chinese social progress, but transforms the role of health care authorities in the wartime Chinese society. The wartime public health management in Ba Jin's two novels is an issue that concerns all the countries in the war, and the health care patterns revealed by Ba Jin possess the referential capacity for the public health conditions of other war-affected countries. Meanwhile, Ba Jin's approach to representing the war is different from those of the war narratives in other cultures which usually concern the changes in class, values, and gender relations in the war. In terms of these characteristics, Ba Jin's perspective on representing the war is a Chinese contribution to the world wartime narrative.

Key words: Anti-Japanese war, health care narrative, wartime narrative in world literature, Ba Jin, Ward Four, Cold Nights