AustLit

'Written in an interlanguage of English and Chinese, Jong Ah Siug’s autobiography “The Case” (1872) is rich in ambiguity; this makes it urgently in need of interpretation. Tried unfairly and detained in a lunatic asylum, Jong wrote “The Case” to narrate the cause, process, and aftermath of a fight to prove his innocence, yet unknowingly he introduced another case with the use of highly individualized language: does his “nonsense” imply that he was of unsound mind? This article will analyze “The Case”, first to deduce what Jong’s case really is, what it tells us about Australian colonial culture, and how medical knowledge was powerfully channeled in the colony. Secondly it will examine the case of “The Case”: how the text is accepted by contemporary critics, translators, and psychiatrists, why they are prone to regard the narrator as mad, and what part language plays in the construction of Jong’s insanity.' (Publication abstract)