The writing of colonial modernity in Wu Zhuo-liu's novels = 吳濁流作品中的殖民現代性書寫

Abstract

Colonial modernity has long been an important topic in the studies of colonial Taiwanese literature. Existing research on it focuses mainly on how Taiwanese writers represent their thoughts on colonial modernity through their writings. However, most previous studies concentrate on the manifestations of modernity in one single text or deal with the colonial period only, whereas intertextual readings on both colonial and post-colonial texts remain rare. This thesis offers an intertextual analysis on the novels of Wu Zhuo-liu, a representative Taiwanese writer for both the colonial era and postwar years. It demonstrates the following three characteristics of Wu’s view on colonial modernity. 1) Modern imagination is not a one-off or gradual process, but an imagination-disillusion-reimagination loop. The level of intensification of colonial contradictions determines the final destination of the modernization path in the novels; 2) The logic of civilization/barbarism used by Japan during colonial period was internalized in the text by Wu as his own modern discourse, and this logic was continuously used by Taiwanese intellectuals after the Japanese rule; 3) After the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese war, Wu started to reflect on modernity. On the one hand, he recalled pre-modern life through memory to resist modern life, and on the other hand, he yearned for an ideal cultural state, which is a good integration of ancient Chinese culture and Western/Japanese culture. But these thoughts on modernity did not address the fundamental problem embedded in the discourse of modernity, nor did it effectively help Wu construct a unique discourse of modernity for Taiwan.