| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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To be united with China or not—this is the question facing the so-called “New Taiwanese (the term claimed by Ex-President Lee Deng-Hui in 1998 and so called “Son of Taiwan” the term identified by President Chen Shuei-Bian in 2001.” This production represented the hope of maintaining peace and cultural diversity, in the struggle between unification and independence—a recurrent theme in Taiwanese theater.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus the protagonist tries to find out “who he is” and refuses to heed Queen Jocasta’s pleas to stop. Tyrannos Oedipus (Oedipus the King) exclaims:
Oedipus’s determination to discover his identity turns into tragedy. In Go Back to the Other Shore, Lai deals with a similar exposure of the writer’s identity. Although it is hard for the writer to accept that he is not the biological son of the man he considered his father, Lai manages to bring peace to the character.
Oedipus’ previous role-identities were destroyed after the revelation of his original identity. Even the places that he had previously identified with and the social categories in his world were turned upside down. According to Anthony D. Smith, “It reveals the way in which the self is composed of multiple identities and roles—familial, territorial, class, religious, ethnic, and gender.”20