This thesis examines the spatial representations of India as respectively a nation-state, a colony, and a member of the third-world countries in modern history in Anita Desai¡¦s Clear Light of Day. According to Henri Lefebvre, space is simultaneously a part in the production and a product. An abstract space has a goal in homogeneity; however, the realization of spatial plan is usually interfered by different ideologies. The flow of the entangling ideologies embedded in the novel is embodied in the family house, the modern city, and the imagination of India as a tourist attraction. Chapter One applies Cathy Caruth¡¦s traumatic theory to demonstrate the family house as a symbol of the dominating Hindu nationalist discourse. The separation of the Das family is taken as an allegorical representation of the Partition. Recollecting the traumatic past, the Das encounters repetitively the crisis of identity caused by the separation and the diversity of discourses. The Hindu nationalist discourse has occupied the family house as the position of articulation. The authoritative discourse promotes the establishment of India as a nation-state through excluding the elements of difference. In addition, the colonial design of establishing New Delhi as a modernist capital reflects the British government¡¦s plan to assimilate Indian colony. Chapter Two applies Michel Foucault¡¦s theories of power and space to analyze first British governmentality in making the new capital a homogeneous space and, secondly, the potential resistance generated from the variety of local cultures. Eventually, New Delhi exhibits itself a synthesis of the modern and the tradition, of the western and the local. Chapter Three explores Indian intellectuals¡¦ dilemma of cultural identity in diaspora. As Rey Chow indicates, the third-world intellectuals articulate for the marginalized; however, the minor of the minor has still been left in the dark. While the diplomat Bakul decides to tell the foreigners only the glory of India exclusive of the socio-political calamities, the local reality is estimated as dispensable for the first-world imagination. Furthermore, the Eurocentric grand narrative embedded in the third-world studies locates the diasporic¡¦s recognition of India oscillating between homeland and tourist attraction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0810109-031300 |
| Date | 10 August 2009 |
| Creators | Lin, Ya-chen |
| Contributors | Shuli Chang, TEE Kim Tong, Hsin-ya Huang |
| 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-0810109-031300 |
| Rights | withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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