（英语语言文学专业论文）飞散的女性——《毕司沃斯先生的房子》的后殖民女性主义解读.pdf

华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 iii 摘摘 要要 二十世纪下半叶，后殖民主义开始盛行，与后结构主义、后现代主义、女权主义 等共同成为主要的文学批评话语。维苏奈保尔以及萨尔曼拉什迪，石黑一雄， 提摩西默等当代飞散作家描述了不同文化与价值形态，揭示了飞散群体失落、孤 独、以及文化身份认同的尴尬处境，并不同程度地关注了文化身份与种族冲突的根 源及影响。在小说毕司沃斯先生的房子（a house for mr. biswas）中，当代 印度裔英国作家奈保尔将双重文化身份作为小说主题，展现了那些特立尼达印度移 民们游离于不同文化价值形态与民族传统之间所面临的文化认同危机。 本文试图运用后殖民女性主义理论分析奈保尔的一部经典之作毕司沃斯先生的 房子，从而探讨飞散的印度裔特立尼达女性的生活。该论文通过评析 20 世纪英国 移民作品的创作语境及传统，探讨了奈保尔对飞散创作的意识及其经典之作毕司 沃斯先生的房子中所映射出的飞散者们的不同境遇。文中重点分析了小说中的三 个具有代表性的女性人物，洞察了飞散的三代印度裔特立尼达女性的生活。最后论 文指出了作家奈保尔的飞散情结以及三代印度裔特立尼达女性的生活特色。小说中 三代飞散的女性除了面临文化身份认同危机以外，还要忍受着性别歧视，以至于她 们所承受的痛苦比飞散的男性所承受的更多。然而值得注意的是：这三代女性的生 活特色各有不同。 综上，本文作者认为奈保尔通过毕司沃斯先生的房子一书阐明了他对印度裔 特立尼达人们文化认同的看法，这些飞散的人们不可能消解自身的无根性，而教育 似乎是能解放飞散者特别是这些飞散女性的唯一途径，使她们实现自身的价值,摆脱 印度教的约束，最终独立自主。 关键词关键词：奈保尔 毕司沃斯先生的房子 飞散的女性 文化认同 特点 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 i abstract in the late half of the 20th century, post-colonialism, together with other theories such as post-structuralism, post-modernism and feminism, has been prevalent in the western academies and considered as a major critical discourse. contemporary diasporic writers, such as vidiadhar surajprasad naipaul, salman rushdie, kazuo ishiguro, and timothy mo, attempt to describe the different experiences of unfamiliar cultures and values, exploring the sense of loss, loneliness that diasporas have felt, probing into the crisis of cultural identity that diasporas have suffered from. they have involuntarily showed much concern for the source and effects of cultural or racial conflicts. in a house for mr. biswas, successfully applying the theme of bicultural identity, the british indian-born novelist naipaul, explores the crisis of cultural identity the trinidadian indians have encountered. this thesis attempts to explore the diasporized trinidadian indian female experiences by means of launching an attempt at a postcolonial feminist study of naipauls a house for mr. biswas. it firstly explores the literary tradition and context of diasporic writing in the 20th century, naipauls awareness of diasporic writing and his a house for mr. biswas as the presentation of the diasporic writing. then the thesis probes into the dilemma encountered by three important diasporized trinidadian indian female characters from three different generations mrs. tulsi, her daughter shama and shamas daughter savi. finally, it points out naipauls diaspora complex and the features of the diasporized trinidadian indian women of three different generations. on top of the crisis of cultural identity, those diasporized women are confronted with sexism, thus their lives are much more intolerable than those diasporized men. however, the three female characters have lived remarkably different lives marked with different features. 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 ii to conclude, in the eyes of naipaul, it is impossible for those diasporized trinidadian indians to dispel their rootlessness while education seems to be the only means to emancipate themselves especially those diasporized women from the shackles of hinduism and it is education that has ensured their independence and self-sufficiency. key words: naipaul a house for mr. biswas diasporized women cultural identity features 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研 究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或 集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检 索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“”） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 本论文属于 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 1 introduction 0.1 a brief introduction to v.s. naipaul and his works v.s. naipaul, also known as sir vidiadhar surajprasad naipaul (1932- ), is one of the most prominent literary figures of the 20th century. he was born at chaguanas, trinidad, on august 17, 1932 to the descendants of hindu immigrants from northern india. in 1949 naipaul was awarded a trinidad government scholarship to study abroad and on 2 august 1950 he left trinidad to attend oxford university. it was at oxford that naipaul studied english literature and began writing. from 1954 to 1956 naipaul worked for the british broadcasting corporation, writing and editing for the program caribbean voices. since the publication of his first novel the mystic masseur in 1957, naipaul has provoked tremendous glorification as well as pronounced indignation. the early phase of naipauls artistic development culminates in his novel a house for mr. biswas which was published in 1961 and is regarded by many critics as naipauls earliest masterpiece. by 1961 naipauls british reputation was already considerable. he was the author of three successful books, two of which had won prizes (the 1958 john llewllyn rhys memorial prize for the mystic masseur and the 1961 somerset mangham award for miguel street), and he had been reviewing fiction for the new statesman since 1957. the year 1967 was an intensely productive one for naipaul for it witnessed the publication of the mimic men and a flag on the island. after his first journey to india in 1962, naipaul began to travel widely, often recording his impressions of the societies he visited in. the overcrowded barracoon comprises twenty-one journalistic pieces he published between 1958 and 1972. between 1963 and 1979 naipaul published novels at regular four-year intervals. but after the appearance of a bend in the river (1979) no new novel of his appeared until the enigma of arrival (1987). naipauls two most recent travel books are a turn in the south 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 2 (1989) and india: a million mutinies now (1990). a way in the world: a sequence (1994) combined memoir, historical scholarship, and imaginative writing in a series of nine narratives of people whose lives have been altered by their encounters with trinidad. beyond belief: islamic excursions among the converted peoples (1998) looked at islamic countries that naipaul has visited which are non-arabic: indonesian, iran, pakistan, and malaysia. naipauls memoir reading and writing: a personal account (2000) discussed the authors personal development as a writer. so far naipaul has published more than 20 books and has received many awards. he received the t. s. eliot award in 1986 and was knighted in 1990, his name appearing on the british new years honors list. in 2001 naipaul won the nobel prize in literature. in recent decades, few non-western twentieth-century writers have gained a readership as extensive as naipaul. few have been so prolific in both fiction and non-fiction, and have invited so much attention. a house for mr. biswas is naipauls longest novel which totally absorbed naipaul for three years. it is both a minutely circumstantial account of an individual life and a novel that may be read as an allegory of the east indians situation in trinidad or of the colonial predicament more generally (“v.s. naipaul” contemporary author online). 0.2 theoretical basis 0.2.1 postcolonialism and feminism to discuss post-colonial feminism it is necessary to talk about post-colonialism and feminism respectively at the outset. post-colonialism is continuation of decolonization, carried on in the western academy, often termed as postcolonial studies. as a branch of humanities, it denotes a collection of “theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture (literary, politics, history) of former colonies of the european empires, and their relation to the rest of the world” (zhu 284). 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 3 frantz fanon, perhaps the father of contemporary postcolonialism argues that racism generates harmful psychological constructs that both blind the black to his subjection to a universalized white norm and alienate his consciousness. “a racist culture by definition prohibits psychological health in the black man” (zhu 286). on the other hand, the historical implication of “feminism” usually means “movements for recognition of the claims of women for rights (legal, political, familial, etc.) equal to those possessed by men” (zhu 228). virginia woolf is the forerunner, indeed the “mother” of the contemporary anglo-american feminism. this is so not only because she did more than what a woman was supposed to do: studied greek, taught in a womans college, argued for womens suffrage, explored lesbian experience, and wrote for the times literary supplement. in her a room of ones own, perhaps the first important feminist document in the west, judith the extraordinarily gifted sister of shakespeare could only “have gone crazy, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at” (zhu 229). in a speech, woolf calls on women to kill “the angel in the house,” the traditional image of women (charming, unselfish, pure, and above all mindless), even though this angel “dies hard” (eagleton 48). but one should have to kill her, she asserts, before one could be a woman writer for women (eagleton 52). indeed, feminism and feminist literary criticism are often defined as a matter of what is absent rather than what is present. unlike the other approaches, feminist literary criticism is often a political attack upon other modes of criticism and theory, and its social orientation moves beyond traditional literary criticism. in its diversity feminism is concerned with the marginalization of all women. feminists have showed the greatest solicitude for their being relegated to a secondary position. most feminists believe that mainstream culture is a patriarchal culture: that is, one organized in favor of the interests of men. feminist literary critics try to explain how power imbalances due to gender in a given culture are reflected in or challenged by literary texts. feminist critics generally agree that their goals are to expose patriarchal premises and resulting 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 4 prejudices, to promote discovery and reevaluation of literature by women, and to examine social, cultural, and psychosexual contexts of literature and literary criticism. feminist critics therefore study sexual, social, and political issues once thought to be “outside” the study of literature (guerin et al. 196-97). the approach of postcolonial feminism will be applied to help demonstrate the theme of this thesis, trying to dig out something new from the novel from this new angle. 0.2.2 postcolonial feminism there is a close affinity between the post-colonialist theory and the western feminist literary criticism. the common goal shared by feminism and postcolonialism is to rewrite the traditional perception of “subject and the other”. after its subjection to the post-colonialist influence the most conspicuous development about the feminist criticism is the rise of feminism in the third world. the feminist criticism in the post-colonialist culture will have to reformulate its theory on a new levela theory whose core lies in formulating “double-voice speech” on the basis of equal dialogue (x.l. li, 51-56). postcolonialism and feminism are two representative discourses of minority in the western intellect. in recent years, a group of so-called postcolonial feminist critics have established a new theoretical space between the two discourses. in order to set up a theoretical pattern and a hermeneutic strategy adaptable to the texts by third world women, they devote themselves to criticizing the white-centricity and essentialism in the western feminism, and to reinterpreting the western feminist canons from post-colonialist point of view (luo and pei 100-08). postcolonial feminism is also called feminism in the third world. it differentiates from the feminism in the first world which focuses on the criticism of male sexism (p. luo 71). it is a form of feminist philosophy which often criticizes western forms of feminism, notably radical feminism and its universalization of female experience. the postcolonial feminism considers the problems in the context of the indigenous colonial 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 5 politics and economy trying to find the ways in solving the problems. instead of talking superficially about the unfairness between men and women, they are deeply concerned with the disadvantageous positions and the impact of the distribution of the global power upon women in the disadvantaged third world. as for the women in the third world, the oppression does not simply come from the patriarchal society. many postcolonial feminists argue that oppressions to the colonial experience, particularly racial, class, and ethnic oppressions, have marginalized women in postcolonial societies. they challenge the assumption that gender oppression is the primary force of patriarchy. also, they argue that oppressions cannot be ranked at all, as to do so would be to misrepresent their lived experiences. while challenging gender oppression within their own culture, postcolonial feminists also fight charges of being western as some within their cultures would contend. the field of postcolonial feminism arose from the gendered history of colonialism. colonial powers often imposed westernized norms on colonized regions. in the 1940s and 1950s, after the formation of the united nations, former colonies were monitored for what was deemed social progress by western standards. the advancement of women, among other variables, has been monitored by arguable western organizations such as the united nations. as a result, traditional practices and roles taken up by womenseen as distasteful by western standardscan be considered a form of rebellion against colonial oppression. postcolonial feminists struggle to fight gender oppression within their own cultural models of society rather than through those imposed by the western colonizers (“postcolonial feminism.”). an underlying theoretical premise of postcolonial feminism is that concepts of freedom, equality, and rights stem from the enlightenment and privilege western and european norms, rather than representing a universal value system (“postcolonial feminism.”). 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 6 0.3 previous studies of a house for mr. biswas a house for mr. biswas, naipauls fourth book, published in 1961, one of the finest to be written by a west indian author and considered by many to be among the best novels in english literature, marks an important turning point in naipauls works, his attention to psychological and social realism foreshadowing the intensive character studies of his later works. in addition, a house for mr. biswas has the universality of theme his earlier books lacked because of their emphasis on the particularities of trinidadian society. as a consequence of these developments, many critics regard a house for mr. biswas as naipauls earliest masterpiece. robert d. hamner wrote in his biography v.s. naipaul that the novel “is a vital embodiment of authentic west indian life, but more than that, it transcends national boundaries and evokes universal human experiences. mr. biswass desire to own his own house is essentially a struggle to assert personal identity and to attain security-thoroughly human needs” (“v.s.naipaul” c.a.o.). a new york herald tribune books reviewer noted that “naipaul has a wry wit and an engaging sense of humor, as well as a delicate understanding of sadness and futility and a profound but unobtrusive sense of the tragic-comedy of ordinary living. his style is precise and assured. in short, he gives every indication of being an important addition to the international literary scene. a house for mr. biswas is funny, it is compassionate. it has more than 500 pages and not one of them is superfluous” (“v.s.naipaul” c.a.o.). paul theroux admitted in the new york times book review that “it is hard for the reviewer of a wonderful author to keep the obituarists assured hyperbole in check, but let me say that if the silting-up of the thames coincided with a freak monsoon, causing massive flooding in all parts of south london, the first book i would rescue from my library would be a house for mr. biswas” (“v.s.naipaul” c.a.o.). thorpe agreed that the novel is “a work of rare distinction,” a “novelists novel, a model work.” in his v. s. naipaul thorpe commented that the popularity of a house for mr. biswas “must be largely due to its 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 7 universality of subject and theme, the struggle of one ordinary man to climb-or cling on to-the ladder of life.” in short, thorpe concluded, “for west indian literature a house for mr. biswas forged the connection between literature and life with unbreakable strength and set up a model for emulation which no other third world literature in english has yet equaled” (“v.s.naipaul” c.a.o.). naipaul himself claims that a house for mr. biswas is based on his fathers life in trinidad. most people consider it as the most interesting story naipaul has ever written. it holds great appeal for the literary critics around the world and has been interpreted and appreciated from different perspectives. david ormerod comments on the common characteristics of all naipauls novels in his essay “in a derelict land: the novels of v.s.naipaul” that “naipauls finest achievement is undoubtedly a house for mr. biswas (1961). it is the story of one mans effort to overcome the wasteland, the derelict land of trinidads east indian community the writers attitude is tender but ironic; there is the inner, sardonic toughness of phrases like futile with asthma. the impact is attenuated and diluted, yet the tragic undertone to the comic cameo is apparent” (159-77).