帝國花園物語：《夕霧花園》裡的遺忘政治

The Imperial Garden's Monogatari: Politics of Forgetting in Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists

本論文分析馬來西亞華裔作家陳團英（Tan Twan Eng）小說《夕霧花園》（The Garden of Evening Mists, 2012）所講述之帝國花園物語以及潛藏在花園裡的遺忘政治，以梳理記憶與遺忘相互交纏的關係。作者在描寫日本佔領馬來亞這段歷史及其對書中人物所造成的影響時，利用日式庭園向大自然借景的隱喻以及物哀美學，寄託他們因憾恨導致自欺欺人的心理狀態。這段凝視過往的故事，也鋪陳出女主角張雲林如何借重眼下庭園植物逐步重建自身價值體系，以求與充滿罪惡感的過去達成和解的過程。透過閱讀陳團英的《夕霧花園》，筆者認為，想要同理感受戰爭創傷並看穿其背後隱藏的欺瞞意圖，必須先理解記憶與遺忘密不可分的關係，才能洞悉受創者利用移花接木手法和花語寄情方式來回憶過往的目的。這種直視創傷的詮釋策略興許能幫助倖存者冷靜客觀地鋪設一條復原路徑，在不帶一絲遺憾地走出渾沌深淵後，變得更加聰慧和堅強，然後帶著這樣的信念和希望找到與自己和好的契機。

This paper analyzes the politics of forgetting demonstrated in Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists (2012) to argue that remembering and forgetting are not antagonistic but complementary to each other. It is also an account of how people traumatized by colonial violence remember adversity when they suffer for the psychosocial impact of repression. In his story of the Japanese occupation in Malaya and its aftermath, Tan borrows from the techniques of building a Japanese garden, shakkei, the borrowed scenery, as well as the philosophy of mono no aware, to disclose the psychological symptoms of anxiety and depression shown on the female protagonist, Teoh Yun Ling. He also lays bare how the heroine eventually establishes sets of beliefs by which she reconciles with her culpable past. Through Tan’s The Garden of Evening Mists, I propose that if we wish to understand the traumatic memory of war and its pertaining sense of deception, a narrative of war in conjunction with the examination of the dialectical relationship between remembering and forgetting would help those who were once or are still distraught with traumatic memories become wiser, more tolerant, and more caring than they were exposed in the mists/midst of sufferings.