Finding Her Own Voice: Language, Identity and Gender in Shirley Geok-lin Lim''s Poetry

• Main Authors: Chin-chu Liu, 劉錦珠
• Other Authors: TEE Kim Tong
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/57667146245930432137

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 100 === Abstract This thesis aims to examine the language, identity and gender issues in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s poetry. Lim, a Chinese Malaysian and an Asian American, suffers from exclusion and marginalization because of her language choice, multiple identities and gender role. In many of her writings, Lim often, by investigating the language, identity and gender issues, interrogates and subverts hegemony forces attempting to marginalize and exclude others. Lim uses her concept of fluid language, identity and gender to expose the inherent contradictions and fallacies in hegemony forces on the one hand and demonstrates her release from them on the other. I propose that poetry is Lim’s best instrument to reflect her candid feelings about her marginalization and exclusion since it is more spontaneous and less didactic. In Chapter One, I investigate Lim’s linguistic alienation and marginalization and her utilization of language to cross boundaries, physical and metaphoric. Chapter Two explores how Lim, as a result of her diasporic identity, suffers from double exclusion in Malaysia and America and how she employs her diasporic identity, an “in-between” identity to negotiate and translate between different cultures and thereby redefine the meanings of home. The emphasis of Chapter Three is placed on Lim’s portrayals of suffering and oppressed women, and her dismantling of gender hierarchy. At last, I conclude that poetry serves as a best for a reader to understand Lim’s basic ideas and appreciate her outstanding poetic achievement.