The Living Predicaments of Chinese-Australians in Brian Castro’s Birds of Passage

Abstract

This thesis studies the two protagonists in Birds of Passage: Lo Yunshan and Seamus O’Young, analyzing their living predicaments and the fate of being discriminated against in Australian. With Said’s Orientalism as its guiding theory, this thesis analyzes from two perspectives: individual and society. It reveals that the essence of living predicaments of Chinese-Australians is the imbalance of relationship between man and society, man and the self. Meanwhile, the loss of discourse power leads them to be discriminated against in the whites dominated society. The aim of this thesis is to enable readers to understand the living predicaments of Chinese-Australian in different times and inspire people to care about the living conditions of Chinese-Australian in modern times.