Cold War-Era Modernization and Its Discontents: Sex and America in Wang Chen-ho''s Works

• Main Authors: Min-Ying Tsai, 蔡旻螢
• Other Authors: Shuo-Bin Su
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ue9u8m

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 台灣文學研究所 === 106 === Taiwanese modern novelist Wang Chen-ho is famous for his explicit sexual narratives in his works. Previous studies on Wang’s works viewed them as reflections on impoverished rural lives or satires of conservative Taiwanese society. However, this thesis contends that the sexual descriptions, more than satire, designate profound criticisms of “sex” in postwar Taiwan, which this thesis argues is closely related to Cold War American dominance in Taiwan. Appropriating Foucault’s critique of sexuality as a practice of power, this thesis argues that Wang’s works are produced under the apparatus of “Cold War modernization,” which includes double articulation of modern (urban) life and sexual regulations—and their antinomies. Therefore, by analyzing Wang’s works—splitting them into three phases for the shift of concern—this thesis attempts to show how the people’s bodies in Wang’s works “afford” the Americanness and sexual governance, thus paradoxically, becoming “modernized” (and disciplined).