The Fluctuations in Self-Narration in 1930s Colonial Taiwan：On Zhang Wen-huan’s “Father’s Demand” and Conversion Literature

QIU, Zheng-peng

doi:2022.14.1.89

The Journal of Japanese Language Literature Studies > Volume 14(1); 2022 > Article

Article

Border Crossings: The Journal of Japanese-Language Literature Studies 2022;14(1): 89-106.
doi: https://doi.org/10.22628/bcjjl.2022.14.1.89

The Fluctuations in Self-Narration in 1930s Colonial Taiwan：On Zhang Wen-huan’s “Father’s Demand” and Conversion Literature

Zheng-peng QIU

PhD student, The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

1930年代植民地台湾における自己語りの揺らぎ―― 張文環｢父の要求｣と｢転向文学｣をめぐって

邱政芃

東京大学総合文化研究科言語情報科学専攻博士課程。日本近代文学、植民地台湾文学。

Correspondence Zheng-peng QIU ,Email: lester60804@gmail.com

Published online: 30 June 2022.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

This paper re-appraises the Taiwanese colonial writer Zhang Wen-huan’s Japanese novel, “Father’s Demand” (Chichi No Yōkyū), published in 1935, as a form of “conversion literature” in terms of its narrative style and in relation to the nexus of ideas in the literary field of its time. First, I examine the difference between the contemporary autobiography and the literary portrayal of popular life on the basis of the prevailing literary discourses in 1930s Taiwan, and I then show the threshold or hybrid status of Zhang Wen-huan’s texts, positioned between the two genres. Next, I examine the discourse of “conversion literature” and of the “I-novel” in 1930s Japan and clarify how Zhang’s “Father’s Demand” reflected the perspective of the literary elite but also differentiated itself from their work. Furthermore, by paying attention to the representation of prisoners in the work, I clarify the difference between the depiction of intellectual subjectivity in “Father’s Demand” and in other Japanese works of conversion literature. By analyzing the letters in the final section of the novel, I present the contradictions in the subject formation of colonial intellectuals and identify their prior state. Through these analyses, I reconsider the so-called “conversion” in “Father’s Demand,” viewing it not as a return to a specific identity, but as a focus on the body and other pre-subjective entities.

Keywords: Zhang Wen-huan, Father’s Demand, Conversion Literature , Subjectivity, Representation of Prisoners

キ―ワ―ド: 張文環, ｢父の要求｣, 転向文学, 主体性, 獄中表象