| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 台灣文學研究所 === 102 === This presenting thesis initiates with discussions of the complicated formation of identity(ies) in Lai Xiang-Yin’s 2012 novel And Then, trying to expand the argumentation of identity politics by juxtaposing Lai’s literary works and social contexts of Post-Martial Law Taiwan. The first section of this thesis would focus on the formation of self- and sexual identity of Lai in And Then, in terms of her relationship with Chiu Miao-Jin, an indispensable icon for lesbian community in Taiwan. Situated among Lai’s writing, And Then is a landmark for Lai, signifying transformation from melancholy to mourning when speaking of Lai-Chiu relationship, the cause of Lai’s melancholy; and, in light of media theory, this section also aims at showing the implication of such transformation, and also elucidating how Lai’s self- and sexual identity is affected by Chiu. The second section of this thesis explicates the complicated intertextuality in And Then. This section indicates that the intertwining inter-textual references in the narrative, including both works by her own and by others, functions as a means of recollecting the past and surpassing melancholy. Furthermore, by analyzing its textual reference to modern Japanese literature, this section also discusses the debate over whether And Then counts as a novel, and the discussion on the debate would further reflect the direction and instability of Lai’s self-identity. Finally, based on discussions in previous sections the last section of this thesis tries to situate Lai’s works, along with previous discussions, in a larger contemporary social context, in terms of three major issues in literary and cultural fields in post-Martial Law Taiwan: student movements, feminist movements, and cultural memories of Japanese Colonial Period. This thesis indicates that And Then in effect forms a paradigm of the “daughter—father—nation” connection, and further argues that the confessional form in Lai’s fiction stand out as a distinctive innovation in sinophone literary history, in that these confessions cannot be induced to a vanishing point, a single identity, but shows the juxtaposition and entanglement of multiple identities. Such ambivalence and undecidedness of self-identity shown in And Then in fact resonates with national identity in Taiwan, still undecided and hardly settled.
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