published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This study explores the position, of imaginative literature in the ethnically plural societies of Trinidad and Guyana in the Caribbean. It examines the extent to which the production of imaginative literature has been marked by the same ethnic divisions which have bedevilled the political, social and cultural life of these societies. For reasons explained in Chapter One, the study focuses mainly on the literature by writers from and about the Indian section of the population. However, the study is concerned not only with the way that the context of ethnic and cultural fragmentation has affected a good deal of the writing produced in these societies, but also with the smaller number of works, mainly of fiction, which contribute to a much-needed understanding of these societies by bringing the lives of both major groups into a common focus. I argue that it is not enough to describe the differences between the two types of writing merely in terms of the presence or absence of ethnocentric biases, and discuss both the conceptual frameworks within which works of fiction may be felt to give'truthfullknowledge and the conventions of representation which most effectively communicate that knowledge to the reader. The thesis is divided into four sections. The first develops the argument that in much of the fiction examined there has been a connexion between ethnocentric biases, an empiricist epistemology and conventions of representation which are defined later as naturalistic. Parts Two and Three present a detailed examination of this proposition by analysing the works of Indian and non-Indian authors. The fourth part discusses those novels which go beyond the presentation of ethnically fragmented images by constructing fictive worlds which attempt to encompass the social whole. Such novels are shown to have a self-awareness of their epistemological and cultural assumptions, and in some cases an awareness that the real but hidden structures of society may only be incompletely or falsely experienced by the novel's characters. I show that such concerns with attempting to portray the real social whole, frequently intersect with an intense involvement, on the part of the author, with the aesthetic structuring and verbal texture of the novel.

by Choi Yan Yan Cecilia. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-97). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / Abbreviations used for Timothy Mo's novels --- p.v / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One --- "Discussion of major concepts of Stuart Hall, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Rey Chow's cultural identity" --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter Two --- "Construction of Cultural Identity in Sour Sweet, The Redundancy of Courage, The Monkey King" --- p.22 / Chapter Chapter Three --- "The 'double-otherness' of female subjectivity in relation to subalternity in Sour Sweet and The Monkey King, Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard, The Redundancy of Courage" --- p.48 / Chapter Chapter Four --- "Heteroglossia: Different criticisms, multiple voices" --- p.68 / Conclusion --- p.86 / Notes --- p.88 / Works Cited --- p.89 / Bibliography --- p.91

The study explores the hypothesis that the High Victorian ideal of Culture, and Carlyle's response to his own Condition-of-England question, represent efforts to combat, in roughly opposite ways, what T.S. Eliot termed dissociation of sensibility.' It offers an explanation of the persistent impulse towards holistic views of society in the face of technological and social forces moving ever more decisively in the opposite direction. Chapter One defends the intelligibility and consistency of 'dissociation' in relation to influential criticisms by F.W.Bateson and Frank Kermode. The apparent anomalies these critics point to are explained by examining the source of the concept in Eliot's study of F.H.Bradley, and suggesting the relation of 'dissociation' to arguments of Jack Goody and lan Watt concerning the interaction between oral and literate culture. Chapter Two outlines some of the dimensions of 'dissociation' in the nineteenth century: its relation to romantic notions concerning the vision of the child, to various theoretical expositions of the relation between thought and feeling, and to accounts of the personal experience of 'dissociation' given by Darwin and J.S. Mill. Chapter Three examines what some of his contemporaries felt to be Carlyle's impractical response to the Condition-of-England, showing it to be essentially an extrapolation of his own experience of the romantic revolution as described in Sartor Resartus and adumbrated in the early essays. Carlyle's tussle with anomy and heroic emergence into the 'Everlasting YEA' are discussed as a revulsion from literate consciousness. Chapter Four suggests how Newman's idea of harmonious intellectual cultivation depends on the individual maintaining a proper balance between 'implicit' and 'explicit' thought. Newman's account of the relation between these modes in the Grammar of Assent is related to the educational system he expounds in his educational writings. Chapter Five shows how Arnold's emphasis on intellectual consciousness constantly threatens to destabilise his theory of Culture and turn it into a merely subjective ideal. The chapter ends by suggesting how the philosophy of F.H. Bradley tends to heal the breach between consciousness and experience, providing a basis for Eliot's own understanding of the unified sensibility. The Conclusion affirms the value of 'dissociation' as a means of illuminating the holistic impulse, which might otherwise be conceptually unassailable.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Murdoch University, 2006. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 199-205.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-275).

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Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [134]-140).

published_or_final_version / abstract / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy