A New Historicist Study Of Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls is the latest historical novel of Lisa See who is one of the most influential Chinese American writers now. The novel is a complicated and profound historical novel. However, apart from some book reviews, there are very few scholars who have studied or commented on the novel because it’s newly published. Taking Shanghai Girls as its research target, the thesis uses New Historicism to study this novel. The thesis is composed of four parts.In the Introduction, Lisa See and her major works are introduced, mainly focusing on her best seller Shanghai Girls and the research condition of the novel at present. Then, the research purpose of this thesis is briefly illustrated.Chapter One introduces New Historicism, involving the rise of New Historicism, the two core concepts of New Historicism (the textuality of histories and the historicity of texts) and its development.Chapter Two mainly illustrates how is the textuality of histories embodied in Shanghai Girls, which is analyzed from three aspects. To start with, the first-person narration is used to record historical stories in the novel. Then, the thesis points out that the novel stresses the marginalized characters’image in history stories. Finally, the thesis explains writing strategies adopted by Lisa See while narrating historical stories, which are fantasy and intertextuality.Chapter Three mainly elaborates on how is historicity of texts embodied in Shanghai Girls. First of all, according to the meaning of historicity of texts, it can be deduced that Shanghai Girls not only reflects the writer’s life experience but also reflects the social and cultural conditions of the historical period in which See lived. Then Shanghai Girls is also the proof of the function of the pre-existent historical texts. Like the pre-existent texts, Shanghai Girls is a kind of source material for people to study history and it is able to participate in the formation process of history, thus it plays a dynamic role in the development of society and history. To some extent, the publication of Shanghai Girls "makes a revolution in the consciousness of our time"(Gu41), thus it participates in the formation of ideological and cultural history. Finally, Shanghai Girls is the embodiment of the big History which now turns into histories. New historicists think that there is no one text which can objectively and completely reveal the truth of the whole history. It is inevitable that texts, in the course of rewriting and dissemination, are influenced by the fictionality of discourse and that of people’s political position. The truth of history exists in all kinds of texts, so the truth of history needs to be embodied by metatexts. Historical texts are the "explanation" of what happened, rather than the "objective" knowledge. Therefore, the history we learn from Shanghai Girls is not the complete and objective history, rather, it is the history written by See from her own perspective.In the end, the Conclusion summarizes the profound meaning of the thesis. History, like literary works, is also a kind of narrative, rather than something objective, for the former also contains the subjective and fictive elements. Shanghai Girls, like literary works, is also influenced by See’s life experience and social surroundings. In addition, Shanghai Girls as a kind of texts, which is able to participate in the formation process of history, therefore, it plays a dynamic role in the development of society and history. It is also a kind of source materials, from which people can learn a lot about Chinese traditional history and Chinese people, thus helping people know about present China better. We know that Chinese Americans live a miserable and tragic life in Shanghai Girls, which reflects the living conditions of the marginalized individuals covered by big History. While not evading the fact that Chinese Americans are wrong in the historic event concerning paper sons, Lisa See mainly exposes how inequality and undemocratic treatment the minorities suffer in America which claims it is a country of equality and democracy, though. Today, what the American ethnic minorities face is no longer the overt racism in the era when multiculturalism is advocated at present, however, they still cannot escape the impact of neo-colonialism appearing in a variety of features. The impact is invisible in many cases and difficult to identify, therefore, its impact on the people’s psychological and spiritual is deeper and harder to heal. So See intends to remind people not to forget history, not to forget the past and should draw lessons from history, for "consider the past and you will know the present"(Samovar168), in other words, as Bacon said history makes men wise.