在戰後台灣小說史的脈絡中，消費作為議題始於1970 年代 反帝、反殖民的論述，買與不買外國商品成了攸關國家生存的個 人抉擇：當台灣成為國際加工廠，而無法自行研發品牌時，黃春 明的後殖民小說打破了日本舶來品的美麗神話；陳映真華盛頓大 樓系列小說描寫跨國公司如何以廣告行銷商品，改變消費行為， 破壞地方文化；王禎和的《美人圖》（1981-82）批判了台灣人 對美國名牌商品的拜物。這些小說一方面表達強烈的男性國族意 識，對台灣依賴型經濟與現代性不足感到焦慮；另一方面在其經 濟論述上銘刻了性別次文本，推崇陽性的生產，貶抑陰性的消 費。

In the context of Taiwanese fiction, consumption did not become the subject of novelistic investigation until the 1970s when the sentiment of anti-imperialism rose and the understanding of Taiwan’s status as an economic colony started troubling the Taiwanese intellectuals. As a result, to buy or not to buy foreign goods became a question, not just of a personal choice or preference, but rather of national survival. Huang Chunming’s “Sayonara, Goodbye!” (1973) and “The Hat that Xiao Qi Always Wears” (1974) destruct the myth of logos, suggesting that imported goods from Japan are in fact inferior and deficient; Chen Yingzhen’s serial stories of Washington Manson describe how multinational corporations destroy local culture and traditional product value by their overwhelming commercials and fashionable commodities; Wang Zhenhe’s Portraits of Beauties (1981-82) criticizes the upper-middle classe’s fetishistic obsession with American luxury goods. On the one hand, these stories contain a male-oriented nationalism against commodity imperialism and express an unspoken anxiety about Taiwan’s economic dependency and belated modernity. On the other hand, the economic discourse upon which these stories are based is inscribed with gender differentiation, prioritizing production as masculine, but discrediting consumption as feminine.