| Yan Geling, whose writings had witnessed scar memories of both the domestic and oversea Chinese, is renowned for her prolific works among Chinese writers abroad. For one thing, the writing mode of literature on scar memory in the1980s was applied in Yan’s works and reflected by the narration of Cultural Revolution. And for another, Yan’s work covered more on scar literature, including the scars of Cultural Revolution, the scars of immigrants, and the the scars left by history. Readers may be inspired by memories of the past and experiences of immigrations, and also be touched by the vitality of those figures with scars in Yan’s objective and real narration. Finally, the spiritual core and the dimension of its soul can be appreciated in Yan’s works. On that account, this paper takes the scar literature in Yan Geling’s works as its research object, and houses three chapters focusing on the returns of scar memory, the redemption of scars, as well as the introspection on scars. The objective is to investigate the idiosyncrasies of scar writing in Yan’s works.The introduction represents the definition on Scar and the distinctions on Scar Writing and Scar Literature, as well as the differences on Scar Writing and Writings of the Cultural Revolution. Afterwards, three phases of Yan’s writing style were noticed based on the benchmark of Scar, and Yan’s inheritances and developments on scar literature of the1980’s were indicated in this section. The last part covered the literature reviews home and abroad on Yan’s scar writing, and the significances of research were also mentioned in this section.The theme of chapter one is the returns of scar memory:facing life scars. Based on Yan’s rich life experiences and her train of thought for composition, this paper divided her scar writings into three parts:the scars of Cultural Revolution, the scars of immigrants, and the the scars left by history.The topic for chapter two refers to the redemption of scars:the ray of hope. Yan tries to find a way out in redemption after her painting of scars in reality. Readers may find the possibility of redemption in her works, such as someone sacrificed for self-redemption, or a woman got enlightened to the true meaning of life for her child, or the ordinary criteria failed its feature when faced with the composure of souls in the healing process of scars..The third chapter presents the main idea on the introspection of scars:solving the conflict. Scars rooted in wounds, and the latter were derived from conflicts. Similarly, the scars of Cultural Revolution may find roots in political conflicts, the scars of immigrants might result from cultural conflict, and the scars left by history were derived from the strength conflict. These conflicts may be boiled down to the collision between groups and individuals, as well as between dominant culture and the relatively weak one. Yan tries to solve the conflicts via opposing the idea of the weak equals underprivileged and seeking the integration of the oriental and occidental cultures. |
