Spatial Mobility anSPATIAL MOBILITY AND SPIRITUAL OSCILLATIONS: ESTRANGEMENT OF DIASPORIC FEMALES IN MULBERRY AND PEACH AND SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEEd Spiritual Oscillations: Estrangement of Diasporic Females in Mulberry and Peach and Searching for Sylvie Lee
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2021-3-135-145
Introduction. The problems of awareness of life difficulties, psychological needs and anxieties of women of the Asian diaspora, as well as their survival strategies are studied. Material and methods. This paper takes a comparative literature approach and textual close reading methods to interpret two novels written by Chinese overseas female writers. Results and discussion. Both Nieh Hualing’s Mulberry and Peach (1981) and Jean Kwok’s Searching for Sylvie Lee (2019) depict the diasporic experiences of female fictional characters in war times and peaceful contemporary era respectively. Even if the dates of publication of the two novels are across nearly half a century, there are a number of identical elements between them. For instance, both female protagonists suffer from constant cross-border movements, estrangement, even schizophrenia. This paper endeavors to tackle the problems that firstly why female diasporas fall into the estrangement predicament through ceaseless transnational movements, then what are the dialectical relations of spatial mobility and estrangement, and lastly how and why they forge the alternating personality and fluid identity. Conclusion. Through analysis, it concludes that the ceaseless spatial mobility experiences prompt the diasporic protagonists to estrange from their family, culture and self. Furthermore, spatial mobility and estrangement interplay between each other, and finally leading to diasporic women’s dual personalities, which can be seen as both the predicament and the survival strategies of those diasporas. That is to say, the flexible and fluid personality or identity is a request for them to survive in foreign countries. It is hoped that the discussion on those protagonists’ survival tactics will shed light on the exploration of the possible strategies to better the diasporas’ living conditions.
Keywords: отчужденность, женщины, эмиграция, пространственный поток
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Issue: 3, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: LITERARY STUDIES
Pages: 135 — 145
Downloads: 632