Dancing in Memory and Wandering in the winter night: Comparing Two Modes of Exile in Bai Xianyong's Fiction

Exile in Bai Xianyong's Taipei People reflects varied emotional and historical conditions rather than a single experience of displacement. This study compares "The Last Night of Taipan Chin" and "Winter Night" through three dimensions: narrative style, spatial setting and the representation of history. The analysis shows that the former presents an exile shaped by memory and reflective nostalgia, where identity is sustained through recollection, while the latter depicts a more inward and existential condition marked by the collapse of ideals and a sense of disorientation. These differences reveal distinct modes of exile shaped by historical change, highlighting how different conditions give rise to varied psychological experiences of exile and offering a more nuanced understanding of exile in modern Chinese literature.