Re-Educating the Pastoral

U.S./Southeast Asian exile narratives, or "refugee literature," tend to be classified as autobiographies, testimonials and personal narratives, and not with other literary genres such as the pastoral. Pastoral representations of the homeland, however, are an important presence in the literature and film of Southeast Asian refugees. Building on Raymond Williams' study on the country/city tension of the pastoral mode, this project applies symbolic forms of the pastoral to complex anti-colonial struggles against Western imperialism and resistance to oppressive Communist regimes in Southeast Asia. This study focuses on Southeast Asian refugee authors U Sam Oeur, Tran Van Dinh, and Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh, who produce pastoral representations of their homeland and examines the postwar films of Vietnamese filmmaker Anh Hung Tran, who captures urban decay and prewar nostalgia in Viet Nam. The land stands in metonymically for the nation as the authors and filmmaker use the land to present an idealized vision of precolonial Viet Nam and Cambodia that critiques communism and/or capitalism, while the Vietnamese communists and the Khmer Rouge view the countryside as the primary site of re-education for the people. Chapter One discusses Oeur's references to idyllic nature and his invocation of a Golden Age, Cambodia's Angkor Empire, in his poetry collection Sacred Vows. Oeur's pastoral vision serves to denounce the atrocities that the Khmer Rouge committed. Chapter Two observes Dinh's references to Vietnamese myths to create a Golden Age which criticizes the communist regime and their removal from Vietnamese culture in Blue Dragon White Tiger. Chapter Three analyzes Huynh's South Wind Changing and the tension of the pastoral narrative in depicting an idyllic countryside and the urban center to illustrate the destruction of modern war and communism. Chapter Four marks a critical turn in the cinematic display of pastoral beauty and national (dis)harmony in Tran's films Cyclo, The Scent of Green Papaya, and Vertical Ray of the Sun. Ultimately, these narratives all serve as indictments against violence, and the pastoral form is used to oppose war, capitalism and communism, which have ravaged the land and people of Southeast Asia.