The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to analyze some aspects of the historical surroundings in which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote her famous essay ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. From a historical perspective, inspired by Quentin Skinner, I examine how Spivak in a context of French theory in U.S. academy criticized Michel Foucault and defended Jacques Derrida. In the first part of my analysis I relate Spivak’s essay to the ”Foucault and Derrida debate” of the sixties and seventies. I argue that many aspects of Derrida’s early critique of Foucault, and many of the themes of that debate in general, was rhetorically repeated by Spivak in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In the second part of my analysis, I discuss how Foucault and Derrida in the context of U.S. academy were, rather than empirical persons, turned into common nouns well incorporated into the academic language. In this context, where Spivak appeared, I analyze how the ”notions” Foucault and Derrida was disputed. I argue that Spivak, during several years before she wrote ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”, had been trying to refute anglophone marxist and postcolonial intellectuals who criticized Derrida. These critics, including Terry Eagleton, Perry Anderson and Edward Said, had been blaming Derrida for being unhistorical, politically evasive and merely textualistic. My argument is that Spivak sought to defend Derrida towards these critics in ”Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In this context, her aim was to emphasize the efficiency of Derrida’s deconstruction as a political tool for marxist, feminist and Third world intellectuals.

The aim of this essay is to critically consider Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things from a postcolonial feminist perspective, with a special focus on how she models different representations of women, taking as a background the discussions within postcolonial feminism about subalternity and the representations of women from the so-called Third World in theory and literature, as well as the concept of agency from Cultural Studies. This purpose is reached by studying and comparing three main female characters in the novel: Mammachi, Baby Kochamma and Ammu, centering on their different ways of relating to the male hero of the novel, Velutha, an Untouchable in the lingering caste system of India. The essay argues that Roy has contributed with diverse representations of subaltern women in the ‘Third World’ who—despite their oppressed and marginalized status—display agency and are portrayed as responsible for their own actions.

This dissertation critically evaluates the issue of the `silencing' of the subaltern woman in the 1988 version of Gayatri Spivak's essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' The conclusions reached are then related to the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by the Namibian woman writer Neshani Andreas. Chapter 1 deals with the essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' and the `silenced' subaltern woman, examining both Spivak's theory on this issue as well as criticism of this theory by different postcolonial theorists. Chapter 2 presents aspects of both the creative and political practice of women, specifically the woman writer, in certain countries in Africa. Chapter 3 deals with the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas and explores issues like the `silencing' of the subaltern women in the novel, opposition to patriarchal oppression and the engendering of agency by both the writer and the characters in the novel. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

This dissertation critically evaluates the issue of the `silencing' of the subaltern woman in the 1988 version of Gayatri Spivak's essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' The conclusions reached are then related to the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by the Namibian woman writer Neshani Andreas. Chapter 1 deals with the essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' and the `silenced' subaltern woman, examining both Spivak's theory on this issue as well as criticism of this theory by different postcolonial theorists. Chapter 2 presents aspects of both the creative and political practice of women, specifically the woman writer, in certain countries in Africa. Chapter 3 deals with the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas and explores issues like the `silencing' of the subaltern women in the novel, opposition to patriarchal oppression and the engendering of agency by both the writer and the characters in the novel. / English Studies / M. A. (English)