（英语语言文学专业论文）流散者的回归之旅.pdf

ii 内容摘要 内容摘要 作为当代著名的英国作家，当代著名的后殖民作家，v.s.奈保尔于 2001 年获得 诺贝尔文学奖。他是一个典型的移民作家，与西印度的特立尼达岛，亚洲的印度以及 欧洲的英国都有着千丝万缕的联系。正是由于他特别的身份和多元化的文化背景，在 奈保尔 50 年的创作生涯中，我们不难发现他对于后殖民国家和地区人民的生活状态 以及精神追求所表现出的兴趣和关注,特别是他们在肉体和精神上的漂泊。 魔种被誉为奈保尔的封笔之作，发表于 2004 年。小说讲述了一个名叫维利的 印度人漂泊如浮萍的一生， 以及他在流浪中寻找自己到生活意义和精神归属的强烈希 望。 为了找寻自己的目标， 他回到了自己的祖国印度参加解放低种姓人民的革命运动。 但是他又无法说服自己去接受印度的落后和脏乱， 当了解到那些革命者和他一样都是 灵魂的流散者，他放弃了毫无意义的革命活动去前宗主国英国继续寻找自己的梦想。 在书中,看似平淡的漂泊生活具有深刻的心理意义和社会意义,表现了殖民地移民对 无根的迷茫,对夹缝生活的无奈。通过这本书，奈保尔向我们展示了后殖民社会人民 的生活现状，特别是他们在精神上的流散，穷尽一生的寻根之旅最终都是枉然。 论文运用后殖民文化批评中的流散视角来分析魔种中的流散现象，进而关注 书中流散者为文化回归所付出的努力以及令他们失望的结局。论文将分为五部分。第 一章介绍作者 v.s.奈保尔以及其作品，有关作者以及魔种的文学评论和研究意 义。第二章将着重介绍后殖民主义文化理论和流散概念以及两者之间的关系。第三章 则为魔种中流散现象的体现。第一部分注重阐述维利在前半生被动等待，飘泊不 定的生活以及灵魂上的空虚状态， 第二部分分析维利为寻求精神寄托回到故乡印度参 加革命运动的经历，第三部分讲述在认识到革命运动和印度都无法帮助其定位身份， 维利辗转来到伦敦，希望在曾经求学的地方寻求自己的归属。第四章讨论了在全球化 的今天，作者如何看待构建自我身份。从而总结第五章的结论，即第一，奈保尔在写 作过程中以自己的方式反抗了殖民者，特别是在文化上的对抗；第二，通过奈保尔的 作品， 使我们更清楚的看到第三世界人民真实的生活境地， 从而为我们认识现实世界， 确定个人身份的提供良好的视角。 流散现象是殖民历史和近代全球化的必然产物， 这种现象的出现造就了流散写作 的诞生。尽管流散这一术语引入学术研究的时间并不长，但随着全球化影响到日益扩 大以及后殖民文化研究的不断深入，流散文学研究的重要性显得越来越突出。通过这 一视角对 v.s.奈保尔文学作品的分析，警示我们在全球化的今天，前殖民地国家和 地区人民真正的生活状态，他们在本土文化和外来文化之间游离的流散状态。同时奈 iii 保尔在作品中就如何构建第三世界人民独立文化身份的见解,使我们不得不认真思考 处于后殖民状态人们实现文化独立的真正途径。 关键词：维 苏 奈保尔 维利 魔种 流散 定位 文化霸权 关键词：维 苏 奈保尔 维利 魔种 流散 定位 文化霸权 iv abstract as the winner of nobel prize of literature in 2001, v.s.naipaul, who has a complicated connection with trinidad in western indians, india in asia and england in europe, is a famous writer in contemporary postcolonial literature. because of his special identity and multiple cultural backgrounds, in his 50 creating years, he shows great interests in the living conditions and spiritual pursuits in post-colonial countries, especially the physical and spiritual diaspora of people in these countries. magic seeds, which is said to be naipauls last novel, narrates a mans life experience. the man called willie, is a man of indian birth whos wandered the world listlessly looking for a meaning to his life. in order to find his goal and significance of living, he returns to india to find his purpose by fighting with revolutionaries seeking to free the lower castes. what he finds among the revolutionaries are people like him, those searching for a purpose to their lives and appropriate identity for themselves. willie turns himself in, serves a few years in prison, and returns to england with the help of his friend. in the book, naipaul gives great details of the boring exiling life, which illustrates a colonials quest for cultural independence and getting rid of the marginal life. through this book, naipaul demonstrates the true living situations of pre-colonial countries people, especially the spiritual diaspora. moreover, their cultural searching journey is destined to be failures. the thesis will analyze magic seeds through diaspora of postcolonial cultural theory. this paper is consisted of five chapters. chapter one gives a brief introduction of v.s.naipaul and his works as well as the comments and researching significance of naipaul and magic seeds. chapter two will focus on postcolonial cultural theory and diaspora concept. the relationship of these two is also included in this part. chapter three concentrates on the analysis of magic seeds in the light of diaspora. there are three sections in this chapter. the first section shows willies passive waiting in the first half of his life. the second section analyzes willies revolutionary experiences in india. after realizing both india and the revolution can not locate his identity and belonging, willie arrived in london, where he once furthered his study, in the hope to end his diasporic journey in his life forever. unfortunately, his efforts were in vain. chapter four discusses how to construct the identity in the writers mind. chapter five works as the conclusion. from the analysis, two points can be concluded: firstly, naipaul has used his own special way to fight against the influence of colonization, especially in the cultural aspect; v secondly, through naipauls works, we can get a clearer vision of the third world peoples living condition and gain a favorable angle for knowing about the world as well as locating personal identity. although diaspora has not been an item for cultural research for a long time, with the development of the research, the importance of this item has been becoming more and more obvious. through the analysis of naipauls literary works from this angle, we have been warned of the true living situation in the pre-colonial countries and areas. in this global world, they still exile between the homeland culture and hostland culture. meanwhile, v.s.naipaul has listed some possible ways for diasporas to search for their cultural independence and overcome diasporic status. therefore, it is needed to think over the genuine way to realize cultural independence for exiling people. key words: v.s.naipaul willie magic seeds diaspora locate cultural hegemony i 三峡大学学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成 果，除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作 品成果。对本文的研究做出重要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 识到本声明的法律后果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日 期： 1 1. introduction i belong to more than one world. i am a palestinian arab, and i am also an american.this affords me an odd, not to say grotesque, double perspective. in addition, i am of course an academic. none of these identities is watertight; each influences and plays upon the other. it should be obvious that i cannot identify at all with the triumphalism of one identity because the loss and deprivation of the others are so much more urgent on me. ( said, 2000: 397) one must make a pattern of ones observations, ones daily distress; ones lack of representation in the world; ones lack of status. there, for me are not just ideas; when i talk about being an exile or a refugee im not just using a metaphor, im speaking literally because one doesnt have a side, doesnt have a country, doesnt have a community; one is entirely an individual. ( naipaul, 1996:31) in human beings history, the experience of diaspora, whether imposed or voluntary, is by no means rare, especially for those who have the experience of colonialism. as the reflection of reality, literature is fraught with works concentrating on diaspora. the 20th century witnessed the most turbulent and vicissitudinous period in human history- the two world wars, the cold war between the east and west, and the subsequent economic and cultural globalization process. in the era, millions of people move away from their homes and scatter around the world. diaspora does not only demonstrate the experiences of leaving homelands, it also breaks the once solid unity of ones identity and creates him many layers and aspects of identity, which influence each other invariably causes him to wonder who he really is, where he belongs or should belong, and results in difficulty in identification. therefore, people like said and naipaul, who have the experience of diaspora, have great difficulties in identifying and locating themselves. 1.1 special identity and diasporic writing vidiadhar surajprasad naipaul was born on 17 august 1932, in rural chaguanas, trinidad, where his grandfather, an indentured worker, had come from india. because of the unsettled life for naipaul in early years, he experienced great alienation, both from the 2 close-knit family life of his brahmin ancestors and from the social and political life of his native land trinidad. moreover, he hated the narrow, circumscribed, brutal life which surrounded him in colonial trinidad with its limited possibilities, small range of professions, notorious political corruption and racial and religious conflicts. trinidad was a crown colony before, which acquired its independence in 1962. most trinidadians are not natives, the independence created mutual fears between opposing ethnic groups: the africans, the indians and the creoles. moreover, each group tended to view the others culture as uncivilized. naipaul felt that traditional indian culture was decaying; its rituals incongruous in trinidada were bound for extinction. the trinidadians of african descent appeared to have no traditional culture of their own and modeled themselves on the english. the local white had produced nothing of lasting value, were often drunkards, uneducated and privileged, they had the best jobs. seeing the frustrated and unequal phenomena, he was eager to escape and had his own fantasies of being a man with his individuality and spiritual belonging and cultural belonging. in 1961, naipaul published his first major novel, a house for mr biswas，which is considered as one of his masterpieces as well as a great book to reveal naipauls difficult early life in trinidad. the protagonist is a fictional representative of the authors own father, who alien both in an indian family and in the larger colonial society, took enormous efforts to fight for a place and an independent identity for his own, which comes in the form of a house. inadequacy and irrelevance of function in a society brings about a sense of diaspora. there is more so of the colonial people living in the colony where they are deprived of the opportunity to assert their subjectivity and identity because they have no knowledge of their past and no voice in the society. therefore, when they purchase their identities, they often are at loss. gradually, they lose themselves in the state of diaspora. mr. biswass unfinished escaping story signifies not only his desire to get away from the stifling colonial society that denies his subjectivity, but also naipauls own fights against the same fate that may befall on him. therefore, the book is an illustration for naipauls escape from trinidad, as well as colonial peoples efforts to escape from the diasporic life and to establish their independent identity.homi bhabha says in an ariticle that naipauls “infantible yearning to be a writer emerged from the anxiety and shame of profound cultural loss” ( bhabha, 2001:11). indeed, as an indian born in trinidad, the beginning of naipauls life is marked by profound sense of lack-a lack of cultural heritage that his identity can rely on. similarly, mr. biswass beginning is characterized as loss after loss. because of his displaced cultural background 3 and marginal living status, he could not escape from the diasporic destiny. in 1950, he went to oxford university on a trinidadian government scholarship and received a ba honors in english in 1953. naipauls background illustrates that he is a typical product of multiculturalism, a legacy of colonialism, a man of no single homeland and a writer of diaspora. naipuals diasporic experiences include three aspects: a diaspora of the hindu tradition, a diaspora of the caribbean cultural heritage, as well as a diaspora in britain. the complicated background gives naipual the advantage of viewing the postcolonial society from both within and without, near and with a distance. the peculiar experiences also sharpen his insights to illustrate the true picture of third world countries. consequently, when v.s.naipaul was awarded the nobel prize for literature in 2001 few readers doubted that he deserved the honor for a lifetimes achievement as a novelist and for his travel writing, for his clear illustrations of the two worlds. his career and achievement can be seen as a part of the worldwide political and cultural changes that produced significant writers. he is part of the generation that had to face the problems and confusions that resulted from the withdrawal of imperial order. as he is from asian indian minority in black-dominated trinidad and his experience of studying in england, his perspective on decolonization, imperialism, black-white relations and other themes of post-colonial literatures is more complicated than that of nationalists and their foreign sympathizers. since he has revealed much about himself and his past, he can be seen as having projected most of his personal experience on his analysis of the contemporary world; while his unique experience is reflections of major social, psychological, political and cultural changes in our times. naipaul, as a severe critic of india and the shortcomings of the newly independent nations, he feels humiliated by the weakness and exploitation of the colonized; he blames european imperialism for the horrors of slavery and for the problems it has left to the former colonies. both world views vie with each other in his writings. meanwhile, he praises the former colonizers for bringing peace and modern thought to areas of the world that remained medieval and debilitated by continual local wars and destructive non-western invasions. because of his compliments, critics from the caribbean, south asia, arab, african and latin america criticized him for being “a despicable lackey of neo-colonialism” ( singh 2000:85),and “ a cold and sneering prophet” ( roach, 1999: 5).he is also criticized to travel “ to confirm his eurocentric prejudices” (winokur, 2001: 11). naipauls descriptions of the advancement of former colonizers and the dilapidation of former colonies are considered as the betrayal of his identity as a writer from the 4 ex-colonies of the third world. the positive voices and negative opinions from the third world countries make naipaul difficult to locate his identical belonging. thus, his diasporic identity is invariable. when naipaul studied in britain, although he was a brilliant scholarship students, he was lonely, isolated, unused to living outside of the extended family. loneliness became worse as naipaul fell into a deep depression that lasted most of his time in oxford. actually, in his first twenty years in england, he never felt at home and is still aware of himself as an outsider. he long regarded himself as a former colonial who became a homeless cosmopolitan. the mimic men precisely described the opposition between the metropolitan center and the colonial margin. “it contrasts the metropolitan center, which is the location not only of the power which comes from the control of language but also of order itself, with the periphery of the colonial world, in which only the illusion of power exists and in which disorder always predominates” (ashcroft, 1989: 8788). in the eyes of the protagonist, ralph singh, the homeland people are actually “abandoned and forgotten” people on the colonial island. so in order to get rid of “abandoned” position, a colonial usually undergoes an inevitable stage of mimicry in identification. however, the mimicry doesnt bring any sense of belonging, but intensifies the sense of alienation and marks the inerasable difference between the colonial and the colonizer. the diasporic experience for singh is nothing more than the crisis that the individual subject undergoes as the society moves from a colonial to postcolonial status. naipaul has a sense of vocation as a writer. his books are written and revised over many years as he tries to find the right form and selection of events for the contents of novels. he has precise command of english language, “of its many registers, and is fascinated by regional, technical and amusing uses. he is concerned with the need for continuity, tension and liveliness in his sentences, paragraphs, scenes and chapters” (mustafa, 1995:33). in order to seek more innovations in his writing and better understanding of the wider world, he traveled a lot and applied the experiences to his writing. the more he wrote about the modern world and tried to analyze it, the more significant he regarded his travel books and essays, he found that the literary genres began to blur, mix and blend. therefore, he created his own new literary forms of our time-original, blend of fiction, reportage and autobiography. moreover, he understands the novel as an investigation of society which reflects how the society changes with the passing of the times. “the great subjects of out time are political decolonization and its 5 consequences, the migration of peoples, the shared desire for the goods and comforts of the modern society and conflicts resulted from these shared desires”( nixon, 1992:28). his books reveal his great concern of these problems. his fiction often has subtexts: the novels can be understood as autobiographic in the sense that they are projections of his own life and anxieties of homelessness, of living in more than one culture, of needing to find a narrative order for experience, of needing to achieve. considering london as the lasting return base, naipaul began to travel extensively after 1960.his prolific writing continued, alternating between autobiographical fiction and reportorial non-fiction based on these travels. these writings cut off temperamentally both from his native roots and from the european culture upon which he attempts to graft himself. another achievement can not be ignored for naipaul is his nonfiction writing. most of these works are rooted in his traveling back to india. after his first trip to india, naipaul re-examined himself and his career as a writer. he had run through his memories of his time in trinidad and india. not having been raised in england, he could not write novels about the british class system. facing the problem of what to write, he began the analysis of the problems such as the conflict between freedom and security in his own life and in the decolonized world. the representative works include: the loss of el dorado(1969), and india: a wounded civilization(1977).among the believers (1981) records impressions of the authors visi