Abstract
This paper explores how Jennifer Chow’s The 228 Legacy (2013) recaptures the buried hi/stories of the 228 Massacre with a trauma narrative about Silk’s deep-kept secrets. It first delineates the evolution of trauma theory and trauma fiction highlighting the significance of articulating trauma and its relevance in healing, hi/storytelling and identity construction. This demarcation shall frame a critical lens to illustrate how Chow innovates distinct insulated narratives on the protagonists to mimic intergenerational ramifications of trauma in the Lu family, to represent their psychological healing and to express the association between silence-breaking, remembering and identity construction. This critical endeavor will also demonstrate that Silk’ story of survival promises the survival of hi/story. Thus, the novel proper not only portrays the traumatic impact, a nightmarish “legacy,” of 228 but also renders Silk’s trauma narrative as the “legacy” to connect with Taiwanese heritage and construct Taiwanese American identities. Given Chow’s innovative form and unique themes about trauma and Taiwanese American diaspora, the article situates her novel in the emerging Taiwanese American literature, Asian American literature, contemporary American diasporic literature and trauma fiction.
Highlights
The epigraph illustrates the protagonist Silk’s silence-breaking about Tarou Lu’s (Lisa’s father) death during Taiwan’s 228 Massacre2 in which about 20,00030,000 Taiwanese elites were executed by Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist soldiers following island-wide protest against rampant corruption, exploitation and discrimination and a strong demand for democracy
Besides alleviating tension and alienation in family relationship, Silk’s survival story discloses to Lisa and Abbey (Lisa’s daughter) their family immigration hi/story, unearths the erased hi/stories about 228, and initiates them to connect with their Taiwanese roots and construct Taiwanese American identity
As Silk remarks to Lisa, 228, like any other genocide, is much more than a bunch of numbers for the victims, survivors, the Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans
Summary
The epigraph illustrates the protagonist Silk’s silence-breaking about Tarou Lu’s (Lisa’s father) death during Taiwan’s 228 Massacre2 in which about 20,00030,000 Taiwanese elites were executed by Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist (the Kuomintang, or the KMT) soldiers following island-wide protest against rampant corruption, exploitation and discrimination and a strong demand for democracy. My demarcation shall frame a critical lens for me to analyze Legacy in Section Three “The Story of Survival and the Survival of Hi/Story” and to illustrate how Chow innovates distinct insulated narratives on the protagonists to mimic intergenerational ramification of trauma impact in the Lu family, represent their psychological healing and express the association between silence-breaking, remembering and identity construction.
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