This dissertation analyzes American writing from and about the former British and French colonies in order to critique postcolonial theory and also to establish a new genre of expatriate literature. Focusing on the works of J. P. Donleavy, Edith Wharton, Paul Bowles, and Paul Theroux, I argue that reading these Americans disrupts the binary concepts encouraged by postcolonial theory. This project rethinks important dichotomies such as colonizer/colonized, center/margin, metropolis/margin, civilized/primitive, and white/non-white by examining the ambiguous American character in the postcolonial context. I argue that by categorizing the themes of American literature in the colonies, and analyzing the similarities and differences with European colonial writing we will thus see these works emerge as a fascinating sub-genre of postcolonial literature. Furthermore, by examining these themes and this perspective it is possible to see a more complete picture of the complexities and gradations of identity in the postcolonial world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-09272009-065154 |
| Date | 08 October 2009 |
| Creators | Halloran, Thomas F. |
| Contributors | Hoffman, Paul, Stone, Gregory, Rastogi, Pallavi, Demastes, William, Otero, Solimar |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-09272009-065154/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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