Abstract
In recent studies, researchers tend to reinterpret Wang Zhenhe''s and Huang Chunming''s works through post-colonial points of view. This paper, however, returns to the context of modernization and the development of capitalism in Taiwan, re-examining the prototypical entrepreneurial characters in these two writers'' works.Wang''s two short stories ”That Year''s Winter” (1969) and ”The Lonely Red” (1971) depicted the modern entrepreneurship of small town businessmen despite the size of their businesses, and suggested that these ”prototypical entrepreneurs” attempted to incorporate the ideas of modern management and exhibited self-interest, risk-taking, and rational calculation. Similarly, Huang''s ”The Little Widows” centered around the protagonist Ma Shanxing, an intellectual educated in the United States who specialized in management, marketing, and advertising. As an entrepreneur in the story, Ma sought to modernize the local sex business in order to compete with other rest-and-recreation areas founded throughout Asia during the Cold War. Along the process of executing his project, Ma vividly demonstrated the spirit of rationality that modern capitalism dictates and the entrepreneurial ambition to expand and upgrade his enterprise.These characters reflect the thinking and feelings that a select group of Taiwanese people experienced during the rapid development of transnational capitalism. Since these characters mirrored the writers'' life experiences, they were portrayed ambiguously.