"There is a Will Resisting Resistance": A Comparative Study of Transnational Bildungsroman in Shirley Geok-lin Lim''s Works

• Main Authors: Becky Chung, 鍾貝金
• Other Authors: Joan Chiung-huei Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48488083885462956119

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 英國語文學系比較文學碩士班 === 92 === This thesis, divided into five chapters, features Shirley Geok-lin Lim''s Two Dreams (1997), Among the White Moon Faces (1996), and Joss and Gold (2001) as works in a transnational Bildungsroman mode. The pivotal event that is represented in Lim''s three works is the May 13 anti-Chinese riots in 1969 Malaysia. Lim examines this historical trauma that caused Chinese Malaysians to experience a global diaspora in various perspectives from Chinese Malaysian and Asian American female characters as well as an American male traveler so as to situate personal development within the national framework. This thesis follows the route of heroic journey (separation-initiation-return) as a framework in each chapter. Chapter One introduces the Bildungsroman, its development from androcentric to gynocentric perspectives, from Eurocentric to postcolonial aspects, and its relevance to Lim. Chapter Two to Chapter Four respectively analyzes Two Dreams as a female Bildungsroman; Among the White Moon Faces as a Künstlerroman, the Bildung of an artist; Joss and Gold as a Male Bildungsroman. Chapter Five synthesizes Lim''s three works in terms of the Bildungsroman and revaluates the Bildungsroman pattern in her works. The Bildungsroman pattern in Lim''s works is like "the widening gyre"--in Yeats''s term--which means that individual development is widening with the traveling route--separation-initiation-return--and the themes are broadening with the diasporic experience. From writing about women in Two Dreams, to writing about self and homelands in Among the White Moon Faces, and finally to reexamining gender, home, and nation in Joss and Gold, Lim''s works not only depict a protagonist''s Bildung experience, but also imply a process of thematic Bildung from microcosm to macrocosm. This thesis arranges Lim''s three works thus to see in them the route of the hero-path: separation-initiation-return.