Abstract: The works of Graham Swift， a British contemporary writer， mostly explore people's psychological response and behavior in the face of a great psychological crisis. The refugee in The Light of Day becomes a naked life who is excluded from all the laws and human communities because of the loss of the nation's political identity and the collapse of the psychological order. Faced with the hopeless situation of existence， the instinct for survival makes her copy the image of the country's excellent others as her own for reconstructing her disintegrating subjectivity with the imaginary self-deception. However， when the refugee's mental mechanism is restored， she gets rid of the aggression of the others， and is reborn as a citizen of the world with qualities allied by the other countries and her original country and with the international status and human vision， so that she rebuilds her political identity and psychological identity.

Key words: The Light of Day, refugee, naked life, the other, citizen