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Cultural translation and the exorcist: a reading of Kingston's and Tan's ghost stories
MELUS, Summer, 2004 by Ken-fang Lee
As Olivia recalls the incident, she feels guilty that she fooled Simon (92). She does not believe that Kwan really sees the yin people and considers the whole thing to be only Kwan's illusion. However, by pronouncing Elza's name right and citing the names of Elza's favorite composers and the details of her personal life, Kwan convinces Simon that she really talks to Elza. Having gained Simon's trust, Kwan tells Simon that Elza asks him to forget about her and that Olivia is his true love. Simon looks "sad and grateful at the same time" and accepts Kwan's advice (95).
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In this incident, Simon's love for Elza and for Olivia makes him believe what Kwan has seen and said. In Olivia's narrative, it seems that Simon does not see the ghost of Elza and is taken in by Kwan's words. Olivia thinks that Simon is "fooled" by her and Kwan's scheme. However, if we turn to Kwan's explanation of "hundred secret senses," Simon's acceptance of the appearance of the ghost of Elza becomes understandable and reasonable. Using memory, seeing, hearing, and feelings altogether, he comes to know something true in his heart. Kwan plays a role of catalyst/translator in helping him to understand "the truth." In the name of reason, the communication with ghosts can be easily refuted as "a superstitious act." Ghosts here symbolize the unknown and the unfamiliar to the over-rationalized mind, which ignores a person's true feelings and memories. By offering a convincing translation, Kwan leads Simon to believe.
On the other hand, Olivia claims that Kwan is not a reliable medium. When Elza's ghost turns up, Kwan is not the only one to see it. Olivia sees it too, but she keeps it secret. Interestingly, what she sees and hears is contrary to what Kwan tells Simon. According to Kwan, Elza asks Simon to forget her and start a new life. But Olivia says that actually Elza asks for the opposite; she "was pleading, crying, saying over and over again, 'Simon, don't forget me. Wait for me. I'm coming back'" (96).
Although Olivia claims she sees the ghost crying and pleading to Simon, she explains its appearance as a hallucination and refuses to use her "hundred secret senses." In this incident, is Kwan, as a translator, also a traitor, betraying "the truth" to achieve a more important task, i.e., helping the couple to be together? Or perhaps in this instance of invocation, none of them sees any ghosts. Kwan's hundred secret senses, as she said, are intuition and sincere feelings used to approach the truth. Yet Olivia is not confident in herself in this relationship from the very beginning. The ghost is actually her own fear. She does not know her own value and does not believe in Simon's love for her, either. Not knowing who she is and where she is, she blames the ghost of Elza for the near failure of their marriage. It is not until Kwan conducts the exorcizing act for her that she can finally come to terms with Kwan and with Simon. Kwan plays the role of bridging the imaginary world and reality, communicating between the dead and the living, the Chinese life and the American one. In justifying Olivia and Simon's love and marriage, as the narrative develops, Kwan calls back the haunting past from the previous life and connects the present to the past for them in order to allow for a more promising future.
