摘 要

严歌苓作为当代最卓越的海外女性作家之一，她在小说中运用多重视角，表现出人性的真善美和人性盲点，传递出恶劣外在条件下人性展示出的丰富性和复杂性，将其民族意识与其自我性别意识和生活经验融合起来，以此传达出其对特定社会和历史条件下的深切人文关怀。一直以来，国内外研究者从不同方面对严歌苓小说加以研究，从海外移民作家，女性主义作家，异语文化写作，女性形象分析等方面不一而足。然而，两性关系频繁出现于严歌苓小说中，并对人物形象构成与小说主题有着重要作用，而现有文献对此方面的系统性研究相对较少。本文以《无出路咖啡馆》和《赴宴者》为个案研究，对两部作品中的两性关系进行横向和纵向、时间和空间的对比研究，试图从文革记忆，父母情感关系影响，自身情感经历三个方面来探讨严歌苓执着于写作两性关系的原因，对其作品中经常出现的两性关系类型加以探讨和总结。最后, 对两性关系进行总结和升华，揭示作者相关的写作理念和手法。

关键词：两性关系；严歌苓; 《赴宴者》; 《无出路的咖啡馆》

Abstract

Geling Yan as one of the most prominent overseas Chinese women writers, applies multiple narrative perspective to the creation of fictions, displays the real, good and beautiful side of human nature and the blind zone of it, conveys the richness and complicity of human nature in harsh external surroundings. She integrates her national consciousness into her own gender awareness and her life experience, through which conveys her deep humanistic concern in certain social and historical context. For a quite long time, the researchers at home and abroad tried to read novels of Yan from the perspective of female or immigration writer, writing in a foreign language, analysis on female characters so on and so forth. However, gender relation has always taken an important part in Yan’s novel and played an important role in character image composing and theme of the fiction. But systematic research on this field is relatively less. This paper will take Dead-end Cafe and The Banquet Bug as a case study to make a comparative study in horizontal and vertical, in time and space of the gender relations they refer to and to explore the reason for Yan’s writing on gender relations from the aspect of Cultural Revolution memory, parents’ relationship influence and self emotional experience. And it is to explore and summarize the types of gender relations that occur in her works the most frequently. At last, we are to conclude the gender relations so as to bring out Yan's writing technique and concept.

Key Words: Gender relations; Geling Yan; The Banquet Bug; Dead-end Cafe

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Purpose of the study 1

1.3 Content of the study 2

2 Introduction to Geling Yan and her works 4

2.1 Introduction to Geling Yan 4

2.2 Introduction to her works 5

3 Gender relations in Dead-end Cafe amp; The Banquet Bug 7

3.1 Gender relations in Dead-end Cafe 7

3.2 Gender relations in The Banquet Bug 8

4 Comparison of gender relations between these two novels 10

4.1 Similarities of gender relations in these two novels 10

4.2 Differences of gender relations between these two novels 11

5 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 17

Comparative Study on the Gender Relation between Geling Yan’s The Banquet Bug and Dead-end Café

1. Introduction

1.1. Background of the study

Geling Yan is one of the most acclaimed contemporary novelists and screenwriters writing in both English and Chinese. Born in Shanghai, she served in the People's Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution, in Tibet and later as a journalist in the Sino-Vietnamese War, achieving a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. With such rich and exceptional life experience, she infuses them devotedly to the figures in her novels.

She published her first novel in 1986 and since then has written over 20 books and won over 30 awards. Her works have been translated into 15 languages and several have been adapted for screen, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl and the Flowers of War directed by the most nationally recognized Chinese director Yimou Zhang .

Upon all these, each literary critic has his or her perspective on her work, and a quite number of them contributed her success on literature to her innate gift, her diligence and hard-working. And she was even invited to talk about her new work on BBC, where she shared her childhood experience, her life in the army and how the cultural revolution distorted people to abnormal. Researches on her and her novels domestic and overseas are too numerous to count. The point of view ranges from immigrant female writer, second language writing to linguistic function.

1.2. Purpose of the study

The Banquet Bug, as one of her most renowned novels and the only one written in English, introduces the reader to Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker discovers that by posing as a journalist, he can eat exquisite gourmet meals for free . Under the cover of journalist, he gradually develops some unusual complexes with a beautiful masseuse, and another charming free-lancer. Dead-end Cafe tells about a Chinese girl studying in America keeps a romantic relationship with an American diplomat while,at the same time, an artist Lyon has made himself a part of her life. Being saved or loved? That’s a question.

Women as the main character take up most of her novels, which is not to blame giving the fact that the author is an outstanding female writer herself. While in these two, the delicate emotions between pairs of women and men, the crash and fusion of the culture they represents and the subconscious psychological meaning their gender reflects elaborate themselves in these two impressive novels.

This paper aims to probe into the cultural connotation behind these figures; to appreciate how Geling Yan, the representative author of Chinese female literature, who is said to remap Chinese American literature by characterizing her figures from different social backgrounds makes the special interpretation of western and eastern culture and shows sympathy and concern to people in the very bottom; to engage in intersecting issues of historicity and bodily imagination from feminist perspectives as to illuminate the dynamics of gender relations in Chinese American novels in this transnational age.

1.3. Content of the study