The Rice Sprout Song, the first novel ever written in English by Zhang Ailing, was finished during the time when she resided in Hong Kong, namely, from 1952 till 1955. Forty-one years after she released the book and secured a firm position in the world of literature, she passed away in the USA in1995. According to Su Weizhen, it was Hu Shi that made the earliest comments on the novel. In his reply letter to its author, Professor Hu stated that ¡§from beginning to end, your novel focuses on famine, which might have been a suitable title if you had opted for it. On the whole, the story is described in an unadorned but natural manner.¡¨ Several decades later, Professor Xia Zhiqing offered the same commentary as Hu¡¦s, adding that the novel boasts considerable literary value. After making a probe into the background and inspiration of the novel, this paper dwells on its creative techniques, such as the multiple interpretations conveyed by the narratives, the skillful mastery of images in original writing, the presentation of colorful, concrete pictures, and the clever employment of irony. After that, this paper analyzes the music, mythology, drama, as well as ethical structure mentioned in the novel, and even investigates the standpoint from which the author shapes the characters successfully. Born at the turn of a new era and strongly influenced by both eastern and western cultures, Zhang Ailing is separate from her contemporaries in that she has stuck to her own writing style throughout her career. Nevertheless, as the masterpiece representative of her middle career, The Rice Sprout Song exhibits plainness and purity by basing its plot on real people and experiences. Being a member of Zhang¡¦s distinctly feminine creations, the novel differs from her early or late counterparts. For instance, one of her early hits, The Legends, is overly ornamental and brightly colored while two woks completed in her late years, The Discontented Woman and The Long-lasting Love, are genuinely refreshing and intriguing. Besides, it should be pointed out that the content of the novel is gradually shifted from the physical aspect to the ideological one. A writer trapped ¡§in the narrow corner of human history,¡¨ Zhang Ailing has only a little freedom to exercise her imagination. Therefore, it deserves deep thought that the uniquely rebellious author shows, out of humanitarian concern, sincere sympathy for the plight of Chinese peasants. Concentrating on the theme of rural poverty, she presents her observations in a direct and simple way and thus renders the novel different from her earlier works, which are characterized by a decorative and intricate style. Though described in easy language, the novel displays mature skills which demand heartfelt awe from its readers. No wonder Professor Wang Dewei recommends the novel as ¡§a vulgar model revolting against the modern trend.¡¨ In addition, what the characters say and do reflects the features of the man on the street rather than those of the upper class. As a result, it is fairly effortless for the readers to get exposed to ¡§true-to-life records of human history.¡¨ Keywords: Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang), The Rice Sprout Song, symbolism, color image, anti-communism literature

China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) deeply wounded the collective identity of the nation’s population, as it caused dramatic chaos and violence in every social arena, bringing the country into a decade-long crisis. In the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of autobiographical works was published in China and overseas, commemorating the authors’ (mainly former Red Guards) participation in the Cultural Revolution and post-1968 Rustication Movement (1968-1980). Focusing on the Red Guards, the main participants of the movements, this research inquiries how autobiographical works reflect the impacts of their direct engagement in the history on their self-identification. This study applies a theoretical framework combining Maurice Halbwachs’s insights into collective memory and Jeffrey C. Alexander’s conceptualization of cultural trauma, with trauma and identity as the cores of textual analysis. This research analyses two selected works in each region to observe how the different cultural and social contexts in China and North America affect former Red Guards’ self-identification and their navigation of the traumatic past. Textual analysis of the four selected works shows that Red Guard autobiographies embody the nexus between individual memory and the social framework of the collective memory of the Cultural Revolution and Rustication Movement, as the latter reveals itself in the forms of narrative chronology, verbal conventions, and recurring scenes in the texts. While the social framework of collective memory shapes the Red Guard writers’ textual representations, the Red Guard writers engage in the collective remembering process and construct a victimhood-oriented narrative of the two movements through concentrating on the narrator or other characters’ tragedies. In social and practical aspects, Red Guard autobiographies have multiple roles in the trauma process of the events: the channel for emotional catharsis, the discursive field for former Red Guard writers’ exploration of their memories, and the medium through which the former Red Guard writers articulate their identities. Published in distinctive cultural and political contexts, China and North America, the Red Guard autobiographies embody authors’ different claims: the domestic Red Guard writers remain ambiguous in attribution of the undesired outcomes of the two movements and provide no clear identity of the victims, whereas the expatriate Red Guard writers in North America claim the movements’ experimental nature with stress laid on the inner-party struggles and identify the generation of the Red Guards and educated youths as the victims. Concentrating on collective memory and cultural trauma, this thesis provides new angles to understand the relations among personal narratives, social and cultural contexts, and national history. This study analyzes Red Guard memoirs’ functions in the working-through process of the two unsuccessful mass movements, showing how literary representations assist individuals and collectives with trauma healing and self-reflection. / Graduate