| dc.description.abstract | This thesis seeks to address the post-World-War-II Taiwanese novels that deal wholly or partly with the issue of generals. In fact, the arena of the ROC generals is not merely a real field, and the nature of the war they take part in is not only military but political and ideological. The ROC generals figured significantly in each historic battle of the country--the Nationalist state-founding revolution, the Northern Expedin, the war against Japan, and the Nationalist-Communist Civil War. Inevitably, these seasoned, powerful generals stepped beyond a practical battleground into a subtler combat zone in which a war of divergent political positions, partisanships, and ideologies is waged. Throughout their lifetime these generals oscillated endlessly between allegiance and treason, resistance and surrender, or/and Taiwan and Mainland China. They hence established themselves as an image shot through with conflicts and contradictions.
Furthermore, general writing in novels embodies the elements of both historical realism and fictional narrative. In other words, the generals depicted are paradoxically historical, crucial figures and fictional characters. Such generals on the one hand indicate issues of national identity, power rivalry and class consciousness but, on the other hand, function as an extension and hallmark of a novelist’s literary imagination and creativity. It may therefore be argued that the farther away from historical realism and closer to fiction these generals are, the more clearly they mirror the novelist’s reflection on ROC’s practical politics, history, and wars.
The ROC generals on whom this thesis focuses are those officers who came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government after 1949. On the basis of the novelists’ backgrounds and the subject matter of their works, general writing can be structured into three categories: (1) historically based generals; (2) generals whose stories are interwoven with the novelist’s life; (3) the figural, purely textual generals. In the first category, the generals are imaged with the historical personalities and the plots are appropriated from real events. The corresponding chapter of the treatment is ＂The Inception of the Postwar General Writing,＂ and the novelists to be discussed include Si-ma Sang-dun, Wang Wen-hsing, and Bo Yang. In the second category, novelists go even so far as to hide beneath the appearance of the ＂general topic＂ their distinctive literary styles and biographical reality. Relevant chapters are the third--＂A Paragon of the General: Zhu Hsi-ning’s Witness of Literature,＂ the fourth--＂A General’s Silhouette Figure: The Last Nobles in Bai Hsien-yung’s Writing,＂ and the fifth--＂A General’s Confession and Redemption: Lee Yu’s Feminist Perspective and Metaphorical Writing.＂ In the third category, the general is like a sign. This transition happens after the 1980s. Novels began to regard the general as an allegory of history, politics, war, and ideology. Generals as such do not exist in history but, ironically, come from, and eventually turn back to witness, history. The chapter of this concern is the sixth--＂The Textualized General: A Transition of the General Writing after the 1980s.＂ Among the novelists of the category are Su Wei-zhen, Huang Fan, Chang Da-chun, Lin Wen-yi, and Kuo Sung-fen. The seventh, concluding chapter is ＂Sounding the Knell of the ROC General.＂ General writing after the 1980s focuses almost entirely on the retirement, old age, and deathbed of generals. It seems that the novelist community is well prepared to ring out the old mode of general writing and ring in the new one.
Finally, it should be noted that this thesis is not a research on the veteran writing. Rather, it revolves primarily around the evolution of the ROC general in novel creation. Through the perception of this evolution, we may realize to what extent historical facts influence and modify the writing of novels, and in this case that of the ROC general. Hopefully, this study may help broaden our interpretive dimension of general writing.
Keywords: general writing, ROC general, Si-ma Sang-dun, Wang Wen-hsing, Bo Yang, Zhu Hsi-ning, Bai Hsien-yung, Lee Yu, Chang Da-chun, Kuo Sung-fen | en_US |