突破华人华文文学写作的局限: 以华人作家张翎为例

Abstract

Identity anxiety was once the focus of Chinese literary writing, especially for the Taiwan students studying aboard. The problem of identity was also involved in the works of Geling Yan, the Chinese writer who also studied abroad in the same period of Ling Zhang. Facing with the impact of foreign cultures, the Chinese writers pay more attention to the “differences” between the two cultures, but Ling Zhang pays more attention to the “similarities”. The characters she created are Chinese and “foreigners”. In order to pursue higher material enjoyment, or spiritual homeland, they have an emotional alienation from their hometown and finally embarked on an self-imposed exile road because of the unsatisfaction with the status quo. Those characters wander between the ideal and the reality, fly to and fro between the hometown and the foreign land, and constantly choose between gain and loss. The condition of drifting about the two cultures causes the cultural hybrid for the immigrants. In Ling Zhang's view, firstly, human beings are human beings, then could be interpreted to Chinese, foreigners, and immigrants. Human beings is the main body. Focusing on the common emotion of mankind has become the fundamental of her literary works, describing the basic emotion of mankind, love. Ling Zhang's love has surpassed sexuality, and advocates the fraternity of mankind. She is more concerned about the extreme encounters, such as the priest encountering love, and people encountering a catastrophe. Those embodies her compassionate feeling for all mankind. The problem of identity may be a problem that has to be confronted and solved. Shumei Shih proposes “Sinophone Studies: a Critical Reader”, advocating the absolute localization; Homi K. Bhabha puts forward the “third space theory”, opposing dualism theory, and attempts to find a way out for settlers ' identity. As the history enters to the 21st century, the phenomena of immigration becomes more common these days instead of the individual phenomena in the last century, and will be increasing in the future. The times have changed, the existing ideology which builds on the national nationality foundation are not able to satisfy the social development of today, it is like the reins of human consciousness. The times call for a more open ideology. Therefore, Ling Zhang, as a writer with bicultural experience, narrates a story of love and the love that transcends national boundaries and breaks the cultural estrangement of the east and the west through her works. This is the common emotion of mankind. It seems that Zhang Ling's strategy is better than the current Chinese literary writing about the limitations of identity, and her works bring out the significance of immigrant literature in Chinese literature significance.