The Fluctuations in Self-Narration in 1930s Colonial Taiwan：On Zhang Wen-huan’s “Father’s Demand” and Conversion Literature

Abstract

This paper re-appraises the Taiwanese colonial writer Zhang Wen-huan’s Japanese novel, “Father’s Demand” (Chichi No Yōkyū), published in 1935, as a form of “conversion literature” in terms of its narrative style and in relation to the nexus of ideas in the literary field of its time. First, I examine the difference between the contemporary autobiography and the literary portrayal of popular life on the basis of the prevailing literary discourses in 1930s Taiwan, and I then show the threshold or hybrid status of Zhang Wen-huan’s texts, positioned between the two genres. Next, I examine the discourse of “conversion literature” and of the “I-novel” in 1930s Japan and clarify how Zhang’s “Father’s Demand” reflected the perspective of the literary elite but also differentiated itself from their work. Furthermore, by paying attention to the representation of prisoners in the work, I clarify the difference between the depiction of intellectual subjectivity in “Father’s Demand” and in other Japanese works of conversion literature. By analyzing the letters in the final section of the novel, I present the contradictions in the subject formation of colonial intellectuals and identify their prior state. Through these analyses, I reconsider the so-called “conversion” in “Father’s Demand,” viewing it not as a return to a specific identity, but as a focus on the body and other pre-subjective entities.