Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 2024, 7(4); doi: 10.25236/AJHSS.2024.070432.
Wang Hua, Chen Yudan
Shandong University Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266400, China
From the aspect of historical narrative in the postmodern context, this paper examines the novel based on postmodern theories and explores the novel’s historical presentation. First, Viet Thanh Nguyen compares major historical events with the stories of minor characters, presenting major historical events from the perspective of socially marginalized groups and pointing directly to the obscuring of the disadvantaged groups by grand narratives. Second, Viet Thanh Nguyen employs multiple postmodern narrative techniques to deconstruct the discourse hegemony of grand narratives. Non-linear narratives, open-ended endings reveal the textual nature of history. Third, Viet Thanh Nguyen constructs a multidimensional and plural history from both individual and collective aspects, resisting the unified narrative of history with the memories of individuals outside the mainstream, while a collective is a collective of individuals, and the memories of marginalized groups become a supplement to the official historical record, bringing history closer to the real past.
Viet Thanh Nguyen; The Sympathizer; historical writing; postmodernism; subjectivity
Wang Hua, Chen Yudan. Historical Writing of The Sympathizer in the Context of Postmodernism. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2024) Vol. 7, Issue 4: 196-205. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2024.070432.
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