¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ is one of the earliest published works of Eileen Chang. However, the autobiographic fiction which focuses its topic on ¡§looking for Father¡¨ has not been valued by the academic circle for a long time. In fact, ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ is the center text(centext) among Eileen Chang¡¦s works. She semioticizes this work according to its plot and then makes these elements metaphors of her later works. This is the key to discussions about the hypertextuality between the texts of Eileen Chang and the phenomenonal world. By using a new approach of criticism called ¡§the School of Super Searching,¡¨ this discourse attempts to blend the research achievements of modern anthropology, psychology and folkloristics into traditional searching, to do gender studies by searching ¡§psychological facts,¡¨ and to focus on the intertextuality between the plot of the fiction and the folk data. By means of the motive tied with folktales and folk customs, and of the related significant notions like misogyny, twins complex, endogamy desire, liminality and initiation rite, divine king and scapegoat, and individuation process, with a close reading on the text of ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea,¡¨ this discourse explores how the pieces of symbolism and meaning in the text associate with the life experiences of Eileen Chang.The issues dealt by this discourse are as follows:
1. Lead a large amount of anthropological concepts into literary criticism, and make intertextual comparison between ethnography and literary works.
2. Clarify the countervailing process between masculinity and femininity in ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ by means of the connotative plot structures of the fairy tales, ¡§Iron John¡¨ and ¡§Little Red Riding-Hood,¡¨ in the text. Men gradually construct masculinity by adopting male violence in order to get rid of maternal swallowing and paternal castration.
3. The practical operatoins of Jung¡¦s theory in literary criticism: (1) Twins complex is an important complex to present the relationship between ego and Anima/Animus. (2) Synchronicity and the possibility of predictive text(predictext). (3) Clarification on the relationship between ¡§sukuu¡¨ and the self. (4) Application of the participation mystique on the narrative point of view.
4. Apollo¡¦s Neuroses- Reinterpretation of the implication for the incest by Oedipus in the texts of Eileen Chang.
5. There exists an association between fowls as the symbol of twins complex and Eileen Chang¡¦s family.
6. The riddle about Eileen Chang in her late years is an individuation process from putting on the wolf¡¦s skin to taking it off.
7. The comparison between the autobiographic works, ¡§Jasmine Flavored Tea¡¨ and Little Reunion.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0826109-154839 |
Date | 26 August 2009 |
Creators | Syu, Shun-jie |
Contributors | Jow-Hiun Gong, Chin-Sung Chian, TEE Kim Tong, Ya-Hwei Yang |
Publisher | NSYSU |
Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
Language | Cholon |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0826109-154839 |
Rights | withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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