The Elitism and the Peasant Figures in Peasant Novels under Japanese Colonial Rule (1926-1937)

• Main Authors: Nan-hong Chen, 陳南宏
• Other Authors: Sheng-kuan Yu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42307818315898174285

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 台灣文學研究所 === 95 === Most research on peasant novels under Japanese rule follows nationalistic resistant point of view, which often neglects the ideology of authorial elitism in the peasant figures writing and thus the peasant figures were fixed as losers. Besides, when it comes to economical, political, and social situations, the rational behavior of peasants is ignored or even erased. Based on this situation, researchers tend to unconsciously copy the stereotypes in the peasant novels and take them as the fact. Therefore, this paper tries to collate the problems of the elitism as well as the peasant figures in the peasant novels. At first, I will look into the developments and the variations of the elitism and how they stereotype peasant figures, so as to explain how the colonial society was shaded under the strong civil class ideology. Next, we will focus on the peasant texts, which were divided into tragedy narrative and sneer narrative. Through analyzing the plots, themes, and characters, we can see how peasant novels conspire with the subaltern stereotype in the colonial society, ignoring the rational decisions peasants can make when facing troubles. Nevertheless, unlike those stereotyped novels mentioned above, there are still other novels describing the varieties of peasant consciousness and thus eliminating the stereotype and the collusion. Lastly, through the up-and-down peasant movements during the late 1920s, along with the reports and the rumors of Liao Tien-ting, this paper will try to prove that the peasants went though the commercial and politic count, no matter their decisions seemed resistant, tolerant, dodgy or obedient. Also, this observation again accentuates the elitist collusion between colonial society and peasant novels of that time, and it as well as replies to the long-lasting problem of the colonial elitist historiography which hides behind the nationalistic resistant point of view. Above all, by analyzing the elitism and the peasant figures in peasant novels under Japanese rule, the main focus of this paper is not on representing the peasant figures, but collating course of elitists, from knowing the peasants to writing the peasants. It serves as another side of viewing Taiwan intellectuals under Japanese rule, which is a side that faces the subaltern, but not the colonial government.