The Cultural Representation of Taiwaneseness and Taiwanese Nationalism in Li Qiao’s Wintry Night Trilogy

Abstract

This thesis offers a response to the existing controversy over how Taiwanese national discourse emerged, and the role of the arts in the formation of this consciousness. It does this via a cultural, historical and narrative analysis of Li Qiao’s Wintry Night Trilogy, systematically revealing, for the first time, the way in which this work is pivotal in the development of Taiwanese national consciousness, and showing that this process began as early as the 1970s, rather than 1980s period that existing scholarship focuses on. By employing an integrated narratological approach which includes the theoretical concepts of intertextuality, post-colonial theory, Bakhtin’s dialogic discourse, multilingualism, and reader response, this thesis shows both how the cultural aspect of the discourse of Taiwanese nationalism was developed in Li Qiao’s Wintry Night Trilogy, and how this discourse was conveyed and understood. Wintry Night Trilogy is shown to have played a key role in the establishment of a discourse in which both Taiwan’s past and an imaginary Taiwan nation are simultaneously sought. Under the conditions of martial law it represents key elements of Taiwanese nationalist consciousness, including the construction of a common identity of being Taiwanese, and the recovery and narration of the hidden history of Taiwan in the context of neo-colonial rule. A multidimensional narrative of Taiwan’s past is shown to be represented through Li Qiao’s appropriation of historical source material and via his deployment of postcolonial, intertextual, and multilingual textual strategies.