Searching for a cultural identity in Singapore – the idea of home, belonging and not belonging through the individual and collective in Kuo Pao Kun’s The Spirits Play.

• Main Author: Ho, Ziting.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::Singapore
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52190
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

“A world of flux” (Kuo 70), a world of spirits, a world of individuals, a world of belonging, a world of being. Where is your place in this world? Is this a place that you can call home? In Kuo Pao Kun’s The Spirits play, the recurring idea of home and belonging is something that characters in the play constantly seek for. It is a place that they desire to return to, a place that contains the self and the family, a place where they can find peace and thus rest in peace. Being in “a world of flux”, characters are unable to find this peace as they still hold on to hope even “when life’s over, [where] there won’t be a ‘tomorrow’ any more” (Kuo 74). As we look at Singapore and how these characters are going to fit in, Singapore is a country state that lacks a cultural identity. Though economically functional and able to support herself, Singapore still lacks a strong sense of cultural cultivation which is needed to give her a sense of belonging within the country itself as well as in her people. Through Kuo Pao Kun’s The Spirits Play, I will be looking at how this search for home and belonging can be fulfilled through the building and development of a cultural identity that is based on the individual and the community through their relationship of belonging and not belonging to the individual, community and the home.