Representing Traditional Chinese Cultural Elements In The Postmodernist Context

Larissa Lai(1967-)is a well-known Chinese Canadian female writer,critic and university professor.Her literary works explore the relationship of identity,race,culture,gender and sex.When Fox Is a Thousand is Lai's first novel and was shortlisted for the1996 Books in Canada First Novel Award.The novel narrates a legend of a mythologized Fox engaging in spiritual possession of a Chinese female poet Yu Hsuan-Chi in the Tang Dynasty and a Chinese Canadian girl Artemis Wong in the current era,and skillfully represents traditional Chinese cultural elements.This thesis,from the perspective of postmodernism,probes into postmodernist writing techniques of intertextuality,parody,fragmentation,collage,indeterminacy and pluralism in When Fox Is a Thousand.Intertexuality is embodied by recreating a spiritualized Fox and representing the image of Yu Hsuan-Chi;parody is woven through the ironic rewriting of traditional Chinese cultural tales.Because the Fox,Yu Hsuan-Chi and Artemis Wong narrate their experiences respectively in different space and time,so the literary form,narrative mode,space and time in the novel are all fragmented;meanwhile,the novel collages plenty of traditional Chinese cultural elements to enhance the feature of fragmentation more obvious.The plots,language and images in the novel are characterized by indeterminacy to illustrate the pluralism of the theme.Based on a meticulous analysis,the thesis concludes that,the novel draws inspiration from Chinese mythology and traditional culture with a focus upon historical and mythological female figures;by employing postmodernist writing techniques,it integrates historical and realistic,cultural and mythological connections,and disseminates traditional Chinese cultural elements in the postmodernist context;significantly,the novel expresses the aspiration of marginalized Chinese Canadian females to struggle free from the shackles of patriarchy and the White mainstream culture,aiming to arouse the consciousness of Chinese Canadians to retrospect the origins and spirits of Chinese culture,and to construct their cultural identity andspiritual strength in Canadian society.