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Abstract
This thesis paper adopted Shi Mingzheng’s twelve autobiographical novels as the research text, focusing on the self-image and desire narrative presented in the novel text as the main research aspects. Shi Mingzheng’s novel creation was once interrupted for ten years. Therefore, this paper chronologically divided his novel creation into early and later periods in order to observe changes in Mingzheng’s self-image and desire narrative in his autobiographical novels. Secondly, the author adopted Lacan’s mirror stage, desire subject theory, and psychoanalytically oriented trauma theory as the research methods to examine the self-image and desire narrative connotations of Shi Mingzheng’s autobiographical novels. The research findings show that in Shi Mingzheng’s early novel text, the author’s self-image was formed in the text, namely, the Western codes of the artist and the devil, showing the spirit of rejecting castration and resisting symbolic order. On the other hand, in terms of the desire narratives, the characteristics of traumatic reconstruction was shown. Repeatedly writing about the theme of eroticism not only pointed to the source of his trauma, but also became a thrilling experience in his unconsciousness. As for the text in his later novels, the Formosa Incident was the key to Shi Mingzheng’s repression and return of his trauma after the White Terror. Unfortunately, his era did not give him an opportunity for public recognition. Failing to successfully gain symbolic recognition, his self-image also changed time and agin. As his self-recognition gradually changed towards heterogeneity, Shi Mingzheng’s desire narrative connotation also changed. Repressed by political altruists and the super-ego, redemption by means of eroticism was not possible; therefore, the spirit of religious martyrdom became an illusion, ultimately leading him towards his fateful tragic end.
This paper is the first monograph to study Shi Mingzheng’s autobiographical novels from the perspective of psychoanalysis. It views the essence of human existence from a microscopic psychological point of view, revealing the psychological process of constantly struggling with internal and external difficulties for the survival of the “self” and observing the corresponding relationships among autobiographical novels, the author’s inner mentality, and the times, thereby guiding readers to recognize Shi Mingzheng’s autobiographical novels once again, reinterpret Shi Mingzheng’s life writing, awakening Taiwan’s literary community’s once lost memory of Shi Mingzheng, and repositioning the value of Shi Mingzheng’s autobiographical novels in the history of Taiwanese literature and its significance to the era.
Keywords: Shi Mingzheng, autobiographical novels, Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory, self-image, desire narrative
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