Hover Between Murmur and Grand Narrative: Studies on Female Writing of the Taiwan Modern Literature During the Occupation

• Main Authors: Lu Ming-Chun, 呂明純
• Other Authors: Shi Shu-Nu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/72830929281472335308

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 中國文學系 === 90 === Abstract: This thesis examines the female writing produced under the banner of the New Taiwanese Literature during the period of Japanese Occupation. It attempts to generalize the similarities among the creative works of female writers, and, starting from an inquisition into the aspects of psychological motives of creation, social position, life experiences and literary tradition, clarify the internal context of female writing of the New Taiwanese Literature during the Japanese Occupation. Chapter 1 takes on the living condition of women in Taiwan under Japanese Occupation. Before the 1895 cession, the cultivation and the gradual development of Taiwan has transformed the society into one of traditional Confucianism under the strict control of the code of decorum. For the convenience of rule, the Japanese government of the magistrate during the occupation is not willing to transform the patriarchal social structure of this colony. Nevertheless, for the first group of Taiwanese women who receive the new education and are influenced by the movement of women’s liberation on the island, an enlightenment on the construction of self identity is dawning. Despite the fact that the gender division of labor of the society demands women to be assistant figures, to fulfill the role of a good wife and a royalist mother, the females’ creative writing struggles to maintain a consciousness of identity, to place the female in the position of subject, which develops a female discourse that escapes the grasp of the mainstream literary circle. Chapter 2 titled “Toward the Construction of Small Narratives: Female Realist Writing,” the focus is on the female writers whose gaze is fixed firmly on themselves, and who write on the various aspects of female identity ─ sometimes the little girls’ intimate attachment to their corporeal mothers, sometimes the new sisterhood among teenage girls, and sometimes, the resistance to the conventional trade marriage ─ all of which are in close connection with personal life experiences. Through the writing route of female realism that contributes to the construction of a small narrative, these writers establish their female identity in an environment that demands the sacrifice of small lives. Another group of female writers takes the route of romance and lyricism, which, at the first glance, corresponds to the male imagining of female sentimentality. However, these writers often write in poetry, a genre that presupposes a mighty ‘I as subject,’ in which they incessantly emphasize the existence of an independent self and a transcendental subject. Lyricism enables them to construct in writing a powerful and energetic female subject who is capable of feeling and thinking. Likewise, in another genre, the female writer Chang Pi-Yuan takes pains to polish the stories of romance, which, in a covert way, turns the object of desire into an motive subject. Chapter 4 deals with the writing route of critical realism. Filled with a sense of righteousness and attempts to transform the world as the other male writers, Huang Pao- Tao’s audacious depiction of the issue of sexual exploitation opens the gate for further discussions concerning sexism in the space of body and work in Taiwanese female literature. And Ku Yen Pi- Hsia’s examination of traditional familial system not only brings the propositions of revolution on Taiwanese People’s Newspaper into practice in literary field , but also supplies the deficiency of discussions on the issues concerning the revolution of familial system in the field of New Literature during Japanese Occupation in Taiwan. Chapter 5 of this thesis concludes the characteristics of their writing from the aspects of form and content. The freedom of form as shown in their works, which is indebted to the female literary tradition of Japanese Hean Dynasty, enables them to embrace more deviant female experiences. As to content, their attention is unexceptionally drawn to a quest for ‘self’ which is yet under a subtle emotional influence. Although the effect of disturbance to the patriarchal order under Japanese Occupation is limited, these new literary women are not willing to renounce their insistence on and guard for selfhood. Adopting a variety of writing strategies, they all make their presence in the texts from different directions, in search of a female subjectivity in writing.