Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): David R. Henderson, Robert M. McNab. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-108). Also available online.

In the 'Introduction', I establish the basic parameters of the investigation, considering the problem of defining the nature and meaning of African Literature and its relationship to African Studies. The problem of African writing as marginalised and reactive, particularly when it is in the dominant English language, is discussed. A brief history of fictional writing in Africa is offered. Movements such as Negritude, Africanist arguments and nationalism are introduced as is the quest for a workable ideology. I show that the uses of the term Postcolonial, indeed the problems with the use of any post-term, are one of the clearest indicators of the tensions that continue to define the field. The version of Africa offered in western writing and communicated to Ngugi and Armah in the course of their schooling is discussed as is the way in which writing from inside the Continent must inevitably encounter the versions of Africa1 and the African from outside the Continent. This is the background against which I attempt to situate the novels of Ngugi and Armah. My thesis is then concerned with establishing and integrating the contexts out of which African writing has developed. I aim to assess the different ways in which these contexts supply the narratives with their substance and rationale, and I suggest that the African novel must be read from multiple perspectives. Chapter 2 offers a brief historical background of Ghana and Kenya as British Colonies. The impact of the two world wars of this century is briefly assessed. The approach to independence for both countries is charted and the initial impact of post-independence leadership is touched upon. The second section of this chapter, however, deals with Kenyatta and Mau Mau and with Ngugi's response to both. Kenyatta's trial showcases the drama of settler administration and prefigures his equivocal position as a national leader. The specifically gendered issue of female circumcision and Kenyatta's attempt to mediate between traditionalists and 'reformists' is advanced.

This thesis examines the relation between figures of paradise and the ideologies and economies of colonialism, imperialism, and global capitalism, arguing that paradise myth is the product of a value-laden discourse related to profit, labour, and exploitation of resources, both human and environmental, which evolves in response to differing material conditions and discursive agendas. The literature of imperialism and conquest abounds with representations of colonies as potential gold-lands to be mined materially or discursively: from the EI Dorado of the New World and the 'infernal paradise' of Mexico, to the 'Golden Ophir' of Africa and the 'paradise of dharma' of Ceylon. Most postcolonial analyses of paradise discourse have focused exclusively on the Caribbean or the South Pacific, failing to acknowledge the appearance of fantasies of paradise in association with Africa and Asia. Therefore, my thesis not only performs a comparative reading of marginalized paradisal topoi and tropes related to Mexico, Zanzibar, and Ceylon, but also uncovers literature from these regions which has been overlooked in mainstream postcolonial .criticism, mapping the circulations, continuities, and reconfigurations of the paradise myth as it travels across colonie{and continents, empires and ideologies. My analysis of these three regions is divided into six chapters, the first of each section excavating colonial uses ofthe paradise myth and constructing its genealogy for that particular region, the second investigating revisionary uses of the motif by postcolonial writers including Malcolm Lowry, Wilson Harris, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Romesh Gunesekera. I address imperialist discourse from outside the country in conjunction with discourse from within the independent nation in order to demonstrate how paradise begins as a literal topos motivating European exploration and colonization, develops into an ideological myth justifying imperial praxis and economic exploitation, and [mally becomes a literary motif used by contemporary postcolonial writers to challenge colonial representations and criticize neocolonial conditions.

The thesis argues that through the portrayal of a sequence of authors-as-protagonists who write from within the apartheid andpost-apartheid condition, the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee engages with the 'paradox of postcolonial authorship'. Whilst striving symbolically to retrieve the lost and silenced histories of colonised Others, writers of conscience (or conscience-stricken writers) risk re-enacting the very authority they seek to challenge. Taking account of Coetzee's recent material and adding to ongoing debates, the research traces the non-systematic shifts and transitions in the corpus in which Coetzee rehearses and revises his understanding of the ethics of intellectualism in parallel with the emergence of the 'new South Africa'. The thesis identifies three general tendencies in the trajectory of the work. Firstly, the early fiction is read within Coetzee's project of 'demythologising history' as a means of laying bare the 'madness of civilisation' and thereby exposing colonialist history as another ideologically inflected discourse. The middle phase engages with debates about the limits of representing the racial Other. Through the dialectical motifs of speech and silence, Coetzee attempts to bridge the impasse of postcolonial authorship: the racial Others in these novels are both silenced by oppression and silent in resistance. Finally, published on the cusp of regime change, and then postapartheid, the later novels are read as confessions in which the figure of the angstridden and dislocated white writer strives for persoflal nc1 historit tut(' d reconciliation'. The trajectory of the oeuvre crystallises notions of ethical writing practices, sparely portrayed in the sequence of meta-generic 'Costello lectures'. The academic and novelist Elizabeth Costello endorses notions of feeling and sentiment ("heart-speech") over and above the discourses of reason and rationality, thereby developing Coetzee's concern with the formulation of the private speaking to and informing the public sphere. The thesis assesses how successfully, as a member of a white academic elite in South Africa, Coetzee accommodates his various roles as author, public intellectual and citizen (or private individual with both rights, and obligations to society). Overturning Edward Said's formulation of the public intellectual 'speaking truth to power', Coetzee is sceptical about what constitutes 'truth' and refuses to take confrontational positions. Yet, by withdrawing from the public domain as he makes interventions (speaking through Elizabeth Costello, for instance), Coetzee self-consciously problematises his own position (what he might call a 'nonposition'), lending weight to the claim that he is politically evasive.

This thesis is intended to be a comparative approach to Chinese theories of the literary symbolic by way of a comprehensive investigation of the term xing [Chinese symbol]. The xing has a long history of over two thousand years, is capable of protean meanings and generally considered very confusing. In the Introduction of the present work, a historical review of the study of the xing provides a map of the terrain in this area. Following this, a discussion of methodology is unfolded and suggestions are made that the general aim of this thesis is not to search for a "true" or "essential" meaning of the xing, but to examine how the word has actually been used in Chinese literary studies and to explore as much as possible its explicit and potential meanings. The ideal way of approaching an issue of this nature, the thesis suggests, would be a four-fold one, namely, the historical, descriptive, analytical and comparative approach. In this study, comparative approach is in the predominant position. The first part is designed to reveal the meanings of the xing and a number of other relevant terms. Through a descriptive analysis of the statements by major critics in various historical periods and by invoking Western theories of literature, the thesis discusses the multiple meanings of the xing, the intrinsic relationship between these meanings and the nature of poetic creation which underlies them. In the second part, a contour is drawn to demonstrate the mainstreams of Western theories of symbolism from Romanticism to Modernism. A number of important critics, such as Goethe, Coleridge, Carlyle, Mallarme and T. S. Eliot, are discussed and analysed, thus preparing the ground for an all-round comparison. The comparative study in this work is conducted in two ways: 1) Western theories of symbolism are applied to the interpretation of Chinese concepts and 2) Examples are presented to demonstrate the amazing similarities in the way Chinese and Western critics deal with the issue of the literary symbolic, so as to attain a better understanding of both. The xing not only has multiple meanings but its meanings also work on different levels. Hence, the comparison has to be a three dimensional one: xing is compared and contrasted with fu and bi, and these three terms are compared with parallel Western notions of sign, allegory and symbol; moreover, these comparisons are made on four levels - as rhetorical devices, as modes of writing, as aesthetic tendencies and as modes of interpretation. In the concluding chapter, a summary is given highlighting several major points at which the East and the West come closest and an attempt is made to reveal the underlying theoretical reasons.

The main purpose of this study is to examine a popular Thai genre of the novel, romance fiction, with a focus on the modes of subjectivity and discourses of femininity and masculinity to be found in Thai romance novels between the 1940s and 1990s. The thesis also seeks to locate the various socio-cultural contexts of Thai society, which influence the constitution of Thai gender relations and the transformation of gender norms. Additionally, it attempts to address the issue of the usefulness of Western theories of gender and romance, which are widely regarded in Thailand as tools of Westernization and new forms of colonialism. This study suggests that Thai gender relations are complicated, since there are several disparate aspects that influence the constitution of male and female subjectivity. Western influence is one of these aspects that help define femininity and masculinity, while domestic beliefs also play a salient role as palimpsests that are not easily erased. Thus, the representation of various modes of gendered subjectivity in romance fiction concurrently indicates both changes in and the reproduction of discourses that define an „essence‟ of gender identity that accords with traditional Thai cultural beliefs including the deep-rooted idea that the primary purpose of writing is didactic.

Linguistic research showing dependence on context in deriving language meaning discloses the integral linking of the Luo language with their departed ancestors and the upholding of customary laws. Meaning and impact being transformed in the process of translation from one context to another explains the severe limitations found in previous attempts at cross-cultural understanding between Western and Luo (African) peoples. Studying Luo people’s understanding of ‘bad’ in the light of the above reveals much that often remains invisible to Westerners. ‘Bad’ arises from the activities of ghosts acting through people’s hearts often as a result of breaking taboos. Cleansing, especially of ghosts, through prayer, keeping customary laws and salvation are used to counteract such ‘bad’. Conventional Biblical and mission hermeneutics are, in failing to account for pragmatic linguistics, found seriously wanting. Forces and powers being spiritually based in a monistic worldview amongst the Luo render clear cross-cultural communication with a rationalist and monotheist West impossible. Theological education based on African languages is advocated as the way to engage the challenges of Christianity with Luo ways of life in a way that will result in a deeply rooted African church, and a moral, vibrant, intellectually and economically active African society.

Since the transition from apartheid, there has been much discussion of the possibilities for the emergence of a truly ‘national’ literature in South Africa. This thesis joins the debate by arguing that Black Consciousness, a movement that began in the late 1960s, provided the intellectual framework both for understanding how a national culture would develop and for recognising it when it emerged. Black Consciousness posited a South Africa where formerly competing cultures sat comfortably together. This thesis explores whether such cultural equality has been achieved. Does contemporary literature harmoniously deploy different cultural idioms simultaneously? By analysing Black writing, mainly poetry, from the 1970s through to the present, the study traces the stages of development preceding the emergence of a possible ‘national’ literature and argues that the dominant art versus politics binary needs to be reconsidered. Emphasising the long-term influences of education and language policy, and of publishing, the thesis documents the continuous dialogue of art and politics in South Africa, and in the process unpicks the paradox of South Africa’s (un)national literature.

The Yuanshi (Yuan History)- a Chinese-language account of Mongol rule in East Asia compiled in haste between 1368 and 1370-presents hundreds of liezhuan biographical narratives on imperial subjects. Vital primary sources for reconstructing Mongol and Chinese history, these are viewed as chaotic texts receiving limited rhetorical input Taking the 4 7 subjects of an influential fourteenth-century biographical collection as a sample, this study demonstrates the considerable rhetorical fashioning undergone by some of these biographies, exposing narrative tools employed by the fourteenth-century Chinese historian-compiler. Starting from a case study on the biographies of Yelü Chucai (1189-1243), we identify three themes to the compilers' edits, which three thematic chapters follow across the sample texts. The first of these sees narrative scope narrowed, marginalizing non-'Chinese' elements of the imperium to impose a 'Yuan' shape on Mongol East Asia. The second situates bureaucratic governing institutions as a moral good, imposing a negative positioning on rival approaches. Finally, we demonstrate the characterization of the deserving populace as beneficiaries of moral rule. Though none of these themes emerge in full coherence across the work, the broad tendencies are clear, as is the all-embracing, shaping influence of the storytelling imperative toward vivid juxtaposition of ideal and deviant.

Scholarship on twenty-first century Nigerian female-authored novels has long been dominated by womanist readings, regardless of the fact that these modern narratives represent feminism in strong terms. The readings often subsume subversive femininity within non-aggressive liberation, resulting in an insufficient narrative of the intricacies of the novels of the period. This thesis challenges such representations by proposing subversion as the hallmark of twenty- first century Nigerian female-authored novels through a textual analysis of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come and Kaine Agary’s Yellow Yellow. Through a gynocentric approach, the analysis of the novels foregrounds a feminist view of domination, resistance and solidarity, espousing the premise that the contemporary heroines are understandably rebellious in asserting female agency. The thesis draws three fundamental conclusions: that the feminist paradigm is useful to the comprehension of the nuances of twenty-first century Nigerian female-authored novels, that dissidence is a remarkable feature of contemporary texts, and that this revolutionary tendency contrasts with the conservative attitudes of the previous epoch.