A Study on Chen Yingzhen’s Narrative of Vietnam War: Focussed on Roses in June and Big Brother He

초록

The narrative of the subjugated can subvert the logic and perspective of the dominator. Chen Yingzhen(陳映真) in his works, Roses in June and Big Brother He attempted to disrupt the dominator’s logic through the narratives of the sacrificed. Psychiatric treament of Barney and big brother He, as subjugated individuals who have suffered from the ravages of war and discrimination, proved to be unsuccessful. Both dominator-imposed therapy, coercing the victim back to a state where the dominator’s logic prevails, and the subjugated’s own attempts at therapy, constructing their own logic and world, proved futile. The dominator seeks to control the subjugated by instilling the illusion that they can become like the dominator. Barney, anticipating a return to normalcy as a white American dominator, returns to Vietnam to participate in the battles that result in the killing of Vietnamese natives. However, both Vietnamese natives and he are synonymous in identity. So his death was a kind of symbolic suicide. However, Barney serves as a surrogate for the dominator, and big brother He is a manifestation of the dominator’s essence. In the narrative, true subjugated individuals like the Vietnamese peasants, Emile, etc can only dream within the perspectives of these proxies or part of the dominator. In this manner, Chen Yingzhen illustrates how the logic of the dominator is assimilated by the subjugated on a psychological level, leading to their multifaceted domination. Moreover, he noted that not escaping from that logic, the subjugated would be incapable of crafting their own narratives as autonomous subjects.

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