A Study Of Gothic Form Of Modern Anxiety In Lee Chisu’s Novels

Lee Chisu, the most representative contemporary Malaysian Chinese writer of the new generation, is generally considered to be one of the most influential native writers in Malaysia. Her works, accepted and appreciated by both of the popular and academic circle, have reaped almost all important Chinese literature prizes and laurels at home and abroad. With regular exhibitions of incest, murder, violence, death and other black elements in the novels, Lee is noted for her deep excavation of the seamy side of human psychology, and demonstrates a kind of writing style of repression and terror overall, which are associated with the gothic tradition and show some features of gothic literature. Lust, violence, magic, madness and other irrational characteristics, generally acknowledged as the most representative of labels for Lee’s creation, are all involved among researchers. Unfortunately, however, there is no research going into problems by means of combining these creative features closely with gothic literary tradition, even no researcher has formally indicated the gothic style of Lee’s novels yet. In the light of the research situations above, this thesis will take the gothic features of Lee’s works in hand, in line of the space theory, morphology, image analysis, psychoanalysis, feminism criticism, culture criticism, etc, to discuss the gothic form of modern anxiety in Lee’s novels, to demonstrate Lee’s inheriting the concreting and surfacing aesthetic tradition of gothic literature, which mirrors the modern human psychology with surface black form. This will supply the partial gaps of comprehensive research field of Lee’s creation, and deepen the research level.This thesis falls into five parts. Introduction summarizes the research background, significance and framework. In the third section of gothic literature summary, this thesis mainly introduces the origin and development of gothic genre, and then sums up its certain stable core elements and means during the century-old evolution process of gothic novel, e.g. specific space and time settings, typical characters, terror’s aesthetic emotion, expression method of fiction-or-true interaction, violent and terrorist plots, etc, by which corresponding to the main contents and techniques of Lee’s creation. The first chapter mainly analyzes the gothic form of space images and characters in Lee’s novels. According to the representable of closed physical space and the unrepresentable of repressed psychological space, this thesis shows the corresponding visible and invisible disease of the gothic characters, who are far apart from the Enlightenment category of "man". The second chapter mainly focuses on three primary symbolic boundaries in Lee’s space imagination, and demonstrates the interdependent relation between the living space maintained by the boundaries and characters’ inner space. The existence of boundaries causes characters’internal change from severe depression to anxious and terrified, on the contrary, mental space on the verge of breakdown will also lead to the turbulence even collapse of living space. The third chapter mainly discusses the violent form and death writing which symbolize characters’striving for freedom and redemption or their ultimate transgression of the "defined" boundaries. Part five is a conclusion to the whole thesis. To sum up, while Lee’s works may display a fascination with the negative and the irrational, by contrast, it brings a focus upon the positive and the rational realistic meaning. Meanwhile Lee’s novel writing contributes to the diversification and modernization of traditional gothic modes and forms.