Approaching History: The Fictional Worlds of Ha Jin and Yan Geling

Taken as the two most important overseas Chinese writers, both Ha Jin and Yan Geling left China in the 1980s and attended graduate programs at universities in the United States. Though writing in different languages, Yan mainly in Chinese and Jin in English, they have some characteristics in common. Being away from China has provided them a proper distance to look back at that country and, correspondingly, a unique perspective to appropriate materials relating to the people living in China.;As a special kind of possible worlds, fictional worlds express various aspects of reality, and consequently, readers can see the shadows or reflections of social reality through explorations in the fictional worlds. As one critic says, except for the names of characters and locations, the reality in a literary work is much more authentic than any narratives in history and politics (Jin Kemu & Yang Jiang; qtd. in Ning Zongyi, par.1; Cao Mingzong, par.8). It is not uncommon, hence, for people to take literary works as windows to explore the history and reality of a society.;This dissertation begins with a brief introduction to the theory of possible worlds and speech acts, aiming to provide an ontological landscape of fictions in general and an approach employed to interpret literary texts. The subsequent four chapters focus on two works of Ha Jin and Yan Geling respectively. Through a detailed examination of the four texts, I argue and demonstrate from different perspectives the point that the narratives of these works constitute an alternative account to the dominant official narratives about China and the Chinese people, either by filling in the gaps left by the state narratives, or by offering a counter-narrative to the official master narratives.;Undoubtedly, Ha Jin and Yan Geling's works can be studied from different perspectives, but this dissertation focuses more on their historical dimension. This study will aim to provide some examples and insights that will help with future mapping of overseas Chinese literature.;Literature and history are always mixed. Though fictions, including historical fictions, cannot be treated as factual reports and do not carry any authority as historical statements, all creative writing offers "insights into the social and intellectual milieu in which the writer lived, and often vivid descriptions of the physical settings as well" (Tosh 67-8). Thus, it should be feasible for readers and critics to approach history, or, in other words, to obtain a historical awareness, through fictional worlds.