黃娟小說中的離散經驗與身分認同──以《故鄉來的親人》及其相關短篇作品為例

Abstract

因為地理環境與長久以來的歷史背景，使得台灣人的國族認同上一直呈現多元而分歧的樣貌。國民政府遷台以後實施戒嚴令，企圖箝制台灣人的思想與言論，在緊張恐怖的氛圍下，知識份子想求得出路，唯一的途徑就是赴海外求學，當時國民政府在政治、經濟各方面接受美援甚多，造成台灣人民普遍對美國存有好感，於是興起一股赴美的留學潮，並選擇在美國落地生根。 這批海外移民基於種種原因選擇在美國定居，卻因文化差異而難融入當地社會。他們雖身在美國，心中所念者，仍是故鄉，因此以台美人(在美台灣人)自居，並且致力於將自由、民主的思維傳播回台灣，作家黄娟即是其中之一。她試著用文字將台美人對故鄉的情感及獨特的離散經驗呈現出來，小說內容裡也蘊含對台灣現狀的關心，透過從海外看台灣的客觀角度，使島內許多原來不被重視的問題得以具體呈現。 本論文試著將台美人的離鄉經驗以「離散」的角度來詮釋，並透過霍爾的文化身份理論、安德森的「想像的共同體」學說以及許維德的「台美人認同分析」，將台美人的國族觀和文化認同定義在相同的歷史經驗以及自覺的草根運動上，以此解讀「台美人」名稱的正當性。在討論黃娟作品如何代表「台美文學」時，則是以史書美的「華語語系文學」的概念來詮釋，標示台美文學的台灣屬性，用以和中國中心的「世界華文文學」以及美國中心「美國華文文學」等概念作區隔。 探討的文本主要以黃娟八○年代之後以「台美人作家」的姿態所寫作的長篇小說《故鄉來的親人》為主要的分析素材。其描述到兩代台灣人赴美的原因及其不同的生活態度，正可闡述在台灣經濟政治蓬勃發展之下，年輕人價值觀變得短視近利、自私為己且道德淪喪的現況，因為不同的價值體系，造就兩代台灣人相異的人生命運。此外也藉由故事中所描寫的台灣近代民主運動及政治迫害事件去追尋台灣一步步走向民主化的發展軌跡，探索台美人在台灣民主化過程中所扮演的角色及定位。 本論文也討論了黃娟關懷台灣本土弱勢族群以及台美人在美國人際互動的短篇小說作品，試著詮釋在母文化的自幼薰陶下，台美人如何在異地維持舊有的思想體系，以及在母文化和異文化間如何取得平衡，以此解讀台美人的身分認同和積極為故鄉奉獻自己心力的精神

Based on the background of history and the geographic environment of Taiwan, Taiwan people’s identification of countries and of who they are is keeping separated and multiple. The KMT government put an order of martial law into practice after it moved to Taiwan to control the thinkings and opinions of public affairs of people. Under the atmosphere of tension and terror, people with education wondered what they could do, and the only way was to study abroad. However, because the U.S. government aided Taiwan a lot in politics, economy and other aspects, people in Taiwan had a favorable impression of the U.S. and were eager to go to America for further studies, and then chose to build their family there. These overseas immigrants lived in the U.S. because of different reasons; however, they had difficulties integrating themselves with the American local societies and culture. Even though they were in America, what they concerned was still their hometown. For this reason, these immigrants took themselves as Taiwanese American, and kept disseminating the thought of democracy and liberty to people in Taiwan. Joyce Huang was one of them. She tried to reveal the subtle emotions of homesick and the unique experiences of Diasporas in her novels which strongly expressed her concern to Taiwan’s situations at that time. Through their objective views from overseas, many issues which were not thought highly were shown. This study tries to interpret the experiences of leaving hometown with the point of Diaspora and to identify the identification of countries of Taiwanese American on the culture identification and the same histories experiences through the studies of Stuart Hall’s “theory on cultural identity” , Benedict Anderson’s “theory on imagined communities” and Weider Shu’s “Taiwanese American Identities” to interpret the legitimacy of the name of Taiwanese American. Also the study tries to interpret Taiwanese American Literature with the concept of Shu-Mei Shih’s Sinophone Literature to manifest the attribute of Taiwan, which is used to separate the idea of world Chinese literature and Chinese-language literature in America. This study aims to analyze Joyce Huang’s novel which written after the 80s. The story described that the two generations of Taiwanese have different reasons of going to the U.S. and different attitudes toward life, and it expounds that because of the vigorous development of economy and politics of Taiwan, young people become short-sighted, utilitarian and selfish. The two generations have totally different destiny because of their different values. Furthermore, the researcher tries to probe the role that Taiwanese American play and their identification in the progress of democracy in Taiwan through the democratic movement during the years and events of political persecution to search for the development of the democracy of Taiwan. Besides, the researcher discusses part of Huang’s short stories which express Huang’s concern for the local underprivileged minority and Taiwanese American interpersonal interaction in the USA. Also, the study tries to probe how Taiwanese American keep their original thinkings influenced by their mother culture in the place other than their hometown or how they balance their mother culture and the foreign culture in order to interpret that although Taiwanese American are in a foreign country, they still never give up their own values developed in Taiwan, and how positive they devote themselves to their hometown.