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 Vol.6 

Lasting Love in Tahiti-Identity and Post-colonialism in "Noa Noa" and the Relative Paintings


Author
Wen-Hui Chang
Synopsis

”Noa Noa” is a notebook about the living life of Paul Gauguin in Tahiti in which he keeps trying to find the balance of barbarism and civilization. This is the reason why ”Noa Noa” remains an essential material for studying on Gauguin. Belonging to Tahiti, Gauguin actually could not get rid of his French identity. The question of complicated identities of Gauguin will be discussed in chapter two. Not only can ”Noa Noa” be taken as the memoir of Gauguin, but also it is the path to Gauguin's inside world. However, we can still discover the western styles and shadows throw his paintings in which reflect the influence of the colonialism. Taking himself as the Subject (the First world), Gauguin in fact is being discriminated by the inhabitants in Tahiti as an ”invader”, a colonist. Gauguin, after all, is a French diaspora? Or a spokesman for colonial? Based on the text and the relative paintings, this paper will focus on these contradictory identities by using the post-colonialism discourse of Fanon, on the purpose of answering the question of ”Where Do We Come from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”