A Study Of The Sympathizer From The Perspective Of Diaspora Criticism

The Sympathizer,Viet Thanh Nguyen's first novel,won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2016.The novel is impressive for its unique narrative style and vivid characterization.The Pulitzer Prize Board comments that it is“a vivid refugee story told by a double-face man stuck between Vietnam and America”~2,Maxine Hong Kingston called the novel“[a]magnificent feat of storytelling.A novel of literary,historical,and political importance”(Nguyen,2015:cover endorsement).Viet Thanh Nguyen's works mainly focus on the Vietnamese-American diasporas,and he makes a detailed description of the social situation,psychological state,ideal and vision of the group.Joyce Carol Oates regards him as“one of our great chroniclers of displacement”.The background of The Sympathizer is the end of the Vietnam War.After the fall of Saigon,the protagonist and other Southern Vietnamese fled to the United States with the American army and became diasporas.Suffering from identity confusion in the new country,he and other Vietnamese diasporas were constantly reconstructing their identities in order to live a better life.According to the theory of diaspora criticism,it is argued that race,nationality,the situation of host countries,and oppressions from both host countries and homelands in particular,cause identity confusions.To solve the problems,diasporas keep on reconstructing their identities against the forces of both host countries and homelands,memories and struggles,which play an important role in their lives.In the current process of globalization,local wars and conflicts have forced people to leave their homelands and live elsewhere.As some of them turn out to be refugee diasporas,they have to suffer from identity confusions.In order to survive in the host country and adapt to the new environment,the diasporas constantly reconstruct their identities.The thesis hopes that the study of the novel may be of use to those who want to know the reality of America,especially diasporas'identity confusions and reconstruction of identity.