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Title |
The "Magical Realism" in the Old Man's Writing: A case study in Huang Chunming and Wang Jenhe's Novels |
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Author |
Chen, Cheng-Fan |
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Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Languages and Literature, National Chi Nan University |
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Abstract |
The study of the images of the elderly in Chun-Ming Huang's novels has been favored constantly by academic circles, especially the collection of short novels featuring the aged protagonists: “Setting Free”. Within the collection, stories such as, ‘Hover Between Life and Death’, ‘Spring on the Silver Whiskers’ and ‘The Coming of the Ghost’ which were written in 1998 are particularly prominent in the series of socially realistic novels for their rural legendary characteristics. They also draw people's curiosity about whether works with such interesting and alternative flavors are just a diversified attempt at writing techniques or more profound implications that were hidden behind. In fact, this mystery in the three novels seems to be a continuation of Realismo Mágico, which flourished in Taiwan in the 1980s. If anything is differently remarkable, these novels reflect the rural reality of the post-90s villages which makes Wang Jenhe's “The Mouse Serves a Guest Tea”(1983) even more worthy of mentioning. Unlike other magical realistic works of the 80s, Wang's novel, which has been long recognized in magical realism with South American style, is not concerned with political or historical events, but with the contemporary situation of the rural elders in the city. It is interesting to note that “old people living alone” plays a significant role in Latin American magical realism writing. By looking at these magical realistic novels of two Taiwanese local writers, the paper aims to rethink the issue of old people and conduct a cross-culture dialogue by means of the relevant Latin American novels and explore the localization of magical realism in Taiwan. |
