A Research On Malaysian Chinese' Marginal Situation And Identity Recognition In Li Yi-jun's In The North Of The Dream

As an important part of overseas Chinese literature,Malaysian Chinese literature has attracted the attention of domestic scholars.Since Li Yi-jun,a Malaysian Chinese writer,started writing at the age of 19,she has made a lot of achievements.For example,she has published the largest number of novels in Malaysian Chinese literature and has won many important literary awards.One of her many novels,In the North of the Dream,was published in 2012.It was rated as one of the "top ten novels in Chinese in 2012" by Hong Kong Yazhou Zhoukan and "Asian 100 Best Novels" in 2015 by Taiwan's Wenhsun Magazine,and the writer won the 12th "Malaysian Chinese Literature Prize".Therefore,the novel is regarded as the renaissance of the writer's literary life and its value and significance cannot be ignored.Unfortunately,since it has not been published on the mainland,the novel is still out of most domestic scholars' horizon.In the North of the Dream shows the historical changes of a Chinese town in northern Malaysia from 1927 to 1982.The thesis will combine the political,economic,cultural and other social environment that the fiction involved in together from the analysis of the marginal situation of three generations of Malaysian Chinese,release the transformation of identity recognition,and reveal the historical significance and cultural connotation of the book's writing on Chinese identity.The thesis consists of the following six parts:The introduction mainly introduces the author Li Yi-jun's life and her literary works,summarizes domestic and foreign research on this work,and elaborates on the significance and the research methods of this thesis.The first chapter analyzes the social environment in Malaysia from the 1920s to the 1980s,and restores the historic space involved in the novel In the North of the Dream from the repressive political atmosphere,the transformation of the economic environment and the pluralistic cultural background,in order to provide background support for the analysis of the three generations of Malaysian Chinese identity and the change of their identity recognition.In the second chapter,through the analysis of the three generations of Malaysian Chinese identities,the characteristics and commonness are summarized,especially the marginality of their identities is revealed.For example,Jin Qing-ke represents the first generation of Chinese' diasporic image,Long Yue-qiu and Lin Bao-hai represent the second generation of Chinese' runaway and victimized image,and Ye Shui-jing and Ye Shui-ling represent the third generation of Chinese' vagrant image.Although different from one another,their identities and experiences all go to the marginality.As discussed above,Malaysian Chinese have different identity recognitions in respective historical periods.The third chapter reveals the changing process of their identity recognitions based on the analysis of common identity.The first generation of Chinese deep complex of native China,the second generation of Chinese imagination of hometown China and their willingness to integrate into Malaysia despite of the hurt they suffer,and the third generation of Chinese identification with Malaysia as their own motherland together manifest the change of Malaysian Chinese identity recognitions,their memories of China from the native to hometown and sentimentality of Malaysia from strange to familiar.To some extent,the discussion on the changing process reveals the significance of the writing on Malaysian Chinese identity.The fourth chapter reveals the double meanings of the Chinese identity writing:on the one hand,it has profound historical significance for recording Malaysian Chinese history of migration,settlement and integration,and expressing Malaysian Chinese'remembrance and respect to the predecessors' pioneering spirit in their expedition to southeast Asia;on the other hand,it has profound cultural significance because it not only shows the Malaysian Chinese exploration and inheritance to the Chinese cultural tradition through the simulations of a variety of Chinese traditional festival customs and reference of The Dream of Red Mansions and Chinese classical poetry,but also constructs the aboriginality of Malaysian Chinese culture and demonstrates "cultural Malaysia" of Malaysian Chinese society on the basis of the inheritance of this tradition.The conclusion summarizes the change process of the three generations of Chinese identity recognition in the novel In the North of the Dream,reiterates the double meanings of its Chinese identity writing,and then emphasizes its important significance on relieving identity anxiety of overseas Chinese and positive response to the identity crisis of Malaysian Chinese literature.