『멀베리와 피치』: 디아스포라 여성 텍스트

Abstract

Mulberry and Peach portrays a Chinese woman’s forced diasporic experiences across China, Taiwan, and the U.S. during and after WW II. As a diasporic text it differs from other diaspora-related discourses such as ethnocentric texts and immigration ones. Far from any fantasies of centrism, the novel focuses on two things: revealing the material history of a diaspora as it was and exposing the mechanism of various logocentric ideologies that territorialize the diasporic body in a molecular way. The first results in the faithful portrayal of a female diaspora, Mulberry, as her real body experiences a variety of diasporic circumstances including wars, escapes, containment, and interrogations, which have been persistently denied by host countries as a site of disavowal and fetishism. The second, the exposition of ideological mechanism, also helps to demythify and disfranchise the Other. As Mulberry’s body traverses national boundaries, it turns out to be continually subjected to the policing forces exerted by national ideologies. Neither Communist nor Nationalist China is an exception. All nation-states employ varying categories such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity to territorialize Mulberry’s body. Mulberry, as a female diaspora, finds no logos at all to be able to identify herself with including her own homeland.