The thesis attempts to describe resistance in terms of history, space, and identity in Michael Ondaatje¡¦s The English Patient. The first chapter of the thesis sets out to elaborate the historical context of the novel, and its influence on the subaltern personas. The chapter aims to demonstrate how postcolonial literature rejects Western official history, providing an alternative voice for the subaltern subjects in the novel. In the second chapter I focus on the spatial politics of the novel, bringing geographical and bodily space into discussion by means of adopting the concepts of de- and re-territorialization. It designates how the broken geography and the wounded body characterize the marginalized characters and their dwelling space. Chapter Three is dedicated to the study of the personas¡¦ identity and their relationships, which are formed and developed under emotions of lack and desire. In this chapter I also discuss the intertextuality of the novel, exemplifying how the novel mirrors other literary works and art works, borrowing yet subverting the classics of Western civilization.
In The English Patient, Ondaatje voices for the subaltern, adopting Western classics as the objects of revision. He maps the resistance of the subaltern on the ruins of the Western classics by rewriting the Empire¡¦s histories, space and subaltern identities. The mergence of alternative histories and spaces interweaves a fictional world that is divergent from the official Western world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0713106-163248 |
| Date | 13 July 2006 |
| Creators | Pan, Yun-chih |
| Contributors | Tee Kim Tong, Shuli Chang, Shu-chuan Yan |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0713106-163248 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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