蘇瑞利以《無肉的日子》作為她對曾生活在巴基斯坦的一段過去的輓歌，文中充滿了對她家族中的成員的回憶追思，尤其對女人特別著墨。表面上，這是本回憶錄，然而，在詭譎冷僻的文字使用之下，蘇瑞利運用她獨特的架構和敘述方式，表達了她對巴基斯坦女人身陷國族論述與父權壓抑之下的批判與反思。

為了對抗父權建構與主宰之下的歷史大論述以及為了凸顯論述本身的脆弱，蘇瑞利以寓言述說重新置放群體意識和個人回憶於歷史的大框架中，作為巴基斯坦人民的群體與個人回憶在紛擾不斷的戰爭之中被分裂的最好對照。作者更從母親以身體作為訊息展演的場域中學習如何以女人的姿態建構自己的主體和安置自身在大歷史中的位置；在抗拒回憶和懷舊的同時，蘇瑞利的寓言書寫將她所認識的歷史或記憶的過去放在如回一般不斷閃現的片段中，提供觀眾一個窺視歷史過去的位置，而我透過班雅明對歷史的見解，闡述作者在《無肉的日子》裡欲呈現的不再是歷史裡現成的事物，而是現在所能認出來的真相，利用過去與現在兩個時間性之間的辯證，才能不被囚禁在對過去的追憶裡，也才能在歷史碎片的回看中，不斷的進行移除屬於歷史大論述的框架，而被大歷史排除或壓抑的歷史殘骸才能從辯證的圖像中漸漸顯影。

This thesis sets out to explore Sara Suleri’s memoir Meatless Days in terms of trauma, memory and writing. The first chapter traces the historical background and Pakistanis’ trauma framed in nostalgia. The second chapter probes into the teaching of Suleri’s mother: the performance, the unplot and the identity, in which I resort to Julia Kristeva’s critique essays to replace Suleri’s mother’s position in Pakistani society since she exists there with “heterogeneous” cultural and national identity. The third chapter, focusing on Benjamin’s theory on history and memory, deals with Sara Suleri unique writing style.

Suleri’s Meatless Days uses her allegorical writing to open herself to the possibilities of silence, introspection, isolation and loneliness in the memoir. Suleri’s writing shares some of the single-minded self-absorption with her mother and has somehow been channeled in to her memorized and lost beloved. The memoir then develops into a story that seems to involve synchronicity, but actually involves our need for synchronicity when synchronicity is simply the way coincidence indulges itself in wish-fulfillment.

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 1

Chapter One
Nostalgia and Trauma in Meatless Days ............ 21

Chapter Two
De-temporalization of Memories: Excellent Things in Women ............................................ 45

Chapter Three
Allegorizing History and Memory ....................68

Conclusion .........................................89

Works Cited ........................................95

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