A New Historicist Study Of The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel,The Sympathizer,tells the story about the life of a double agent of Vietcong who left Vietnam after the Vietnam War and then lives in America.In previous American Vietnam War literature,the voices of Vietnamese can hardly be heard,but Nguyen’s The Sympathizer fills in the blank in Vietnam War literature and gives voice to Vietnamese people with its unique perspective.Meanwhile,it also provides readers with a new perspective to reflect on the war that happened 40 years ago.The Sympathizer gives a vivid depiction of ordinary Vietnamese during and after the war.Since its publication,The Sympathizer has attracted extensive attention from critics at home and abroad.The domestic and foreign researches are mainly conducted from the perspective of diaspora or identity,while few studies interpret it from the perspective of New Historicism.Under the theoretic framework of New Historicism,this thesis interprets The Sympathizer from the textuality of history and the historicity of text,focusing on the social,historical and cultural aspects presented by the novel.Since history is textualized,this thesis compares the Vietnam-War narratives in American mainstream literature and The Sympathizer from three aspects: the Vietnam War,Vietnamese image and American image.First of all,in terms of the Vietnam War,American writers in general portray it as a war of justice,which redeems the Vietnamese people from the grasp of communism,while The Sympathizer refutes the justice narration of the war,revealing the devastating damage brought by the war on Vietnam,such as economic recession,huge casualties,family separation and the refugee life of the south Vietnamese.Second,in American mainstream literary works on the Vietnam War,the Vietnamese people are often described as lazy and weak.Such negative images serve to set off the heroic images of Americans.By comparison,The Sympathizer breaks the stereotypes of the Vietnamese and gives them a sympathetic touch.Finally,in traditional Vietnam War literature,Americans are often described as brave warriors and messengers of modern civilization,while The Sympathizer reveals the hypocrisy of Americans under the mask of justice.Textualization of history allows us to question grand historic narration,bring the long-ignored marginal people into our attention,and thus subvert the narratives that justifies the Vietnam War and racist stereotypes.Text is historicized.To explore the historicity of The Sympathizer,the thesis examines the production,representation and impact of the book,that is,the influence of Nguyen’s personal experience on The Sympathizer,Nguyen’s historical consciousness,and the social and cultural influences of The Sympathizer.First,as a Vietnamese-American writer,Nguyen’s identity as a refugee,his diasporic experience in America and the cultural conflicts between the two countries all influence the creation of The Sympathizer.Second,by probing into the historic events involved in the novel,the novel re-examines America’s involvement in the Vietnam War,the defeat of the South Vietnamese government,the harsh lives of Vietnamese refugees,the conflicts within Vietnamese immigrant communities and the identity crisis of Vietnamese refugees.This novel presents the Vietnam War from multiple perspectives and brings to light the survival predicament of Vietnam War refugees who receive little attention from mainstream literature.Finally,the social and cultural influences of The Sympathizer are discussed.The publication of The Sympathizer brings the Vietnamese voices and cultural symbols to the public for the first time,giving readers insight into the lives of marginal figures beyond official history.To study The Sympathizer from the perspective of New Historicism aims at rethinking about the Vietnam War.Under the influence of New Historicism,the boundary between history and text has been blurred,so it is inevitable for people to reflect on history,re-examine the justice and injustice of the war,and examine how orientalism and Cold War mentality influence the Vietnam War literature.This thesis will enrich the domestic research on the Vietnam War literature.