碩士 / 國立中興大學 / 中國文學系所 / 102 / Lin Hai-yin’s most famous novel Memories of Peking: South Side Stories was published in 1960 when anti-communism still prevailed in literature. However, the book is neither only a nostalgia type of novel nor a novel focusing absolutely on the feminism. Memories of Peking: South Side Stories is a novel revealing a call of Lin Hai-yin’s growing conscience of humanity and relating to life writing. Ying-tzu, a representation of Lin Hai-yin herself, leads readers to walk through her toddler years, childhood, adolescence and early adulthood as in an iconic symbol of the timeline, and evokes humanity and empathy of readers by her innocent and kind character.
In other words, Ying-tzu brings readers back to the different stages of life in each chapter. In “Hui-an Hostel,” readers experience at the time when Ying-tzu has yet to face the real and non-real perception in the early childhood. In “Let Us Go and See the Sea,” Ying-tzu is challenged to know how to clearly define good people and bad people. In “Lan I-niang,” readers see the conflict between marriage and romance among Ying-tzu’s parents and Lan I-niang and obtain obscure knowledge of love affairs between man and woman during puberty. In “Donkey Rolls,” Ying-tzu’s awareness toward the society begins to grow after leaving home to go farther away together with Sung Ma to help look for her missing daughter. Finally, in “Papa’s Flowers Have Fallen,” readers see Ying-tzu grows up overnight after her father passed away, and stands firmly up to the future without showing too much sorrow. This also reflects how people usually come to realize the significance of life upon senior’s death and maturity.
From the main characters of the novel, Ying-tzu, Ying-tzu’s father, Ying-tzu’s mother and Sung Ma, readers could see a representation of Confucianism from the Chinese society and culture where family is the core value. This resonates with all Chinese readers. Moreover, what Lin Hai-yin describes in her book is just a common girl, Ying-tzu, whose family are immersed in Chinese culture atmosphere; not someone from a family with wealth and status. Where the stories take place are “spaces” spreading out from the family house to its neighborhood and to some faraway streets and lanes. The readers therefore would easily identify themselves with these familiar “spaces” and feel a sense of a recall of sweet childhood memories during the process of reading.
Memories of Peking: South Side Stories is an autobiographic novel interwoven with “time” and “space” by which Lin Hai-yin reflects on her own growth as well as brings forth a collective memory of childhood to vast Chinese readers. Through writing this book, the author can not only ponder life which she had been through, but also transforms those feelings of confusion, suspicion and pain of her past into strength to redeem herself as well as to the readers. It is also regarded as a pioneer of feminine memoir writing in Chinese literature history.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/102NCHU0045001 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Rui-yan Chang, 張睿妍 |
| Contributors | 黃東陽 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 116 |
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