Colonial and post-colonial discourse in the novels of Yom Sang-sop, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie
Kim, Soonsik Baek
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/23402
Description
Title
Colonial and post-colonial discourse in the novels of Yom Sang-sop, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie
Author(s)
Kim, Soonsik Baek
Issue Date
1992
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Haboush, JaHyun Kim
Palencia-Roth, Michael
Department of Study
Comparative and World Literature
Discipline
Comparative and World Literature
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Comparative
Literature, Asian
Literature, English
Language
eng
Abstract
This dissertation examines colonial and post-colonial discourse in the works of Yom Sang-sop of Korea, of Chinua Achebe of Nigeria and of Salman Rushdie of Indian subcontinent. Since much of the critical attention on colonial discourse has been focused on western narratives, this study aims to shed a different light on the subject by approaching it from the perspectives of the colonized.
The Introduction explains the term colonial discourse and provides theoretical, historical and cultural background to the three writers' worlds. Thus it aims to see the changes in colonial and post-colonial discourse along with these writers' responses to the representation of the Third World in western discourse.
Chapter One explores the world of a Korean writer, Yom Sang-sop, in terms of colonial discourse by discussing his works written in the 1920s and early 1930s. These works (Mansejon, Samdae and other short stories) reflect contemporary Korean intellectuals' psychological topography as well as sociopolitical circumstances under Japanese Colonial Occupation.
Chapter Two discusses Chinua Achebe. His works, though written in English, are widely considered as archetypes of modern African literary discourse due to his ingenious blending of African oral traditions with his English-language narrative in a western literary form. In the analysis of Things Fall Apart, No longer at Ease and Arrow of God, I focus on how Achebe presents the disintegration of traditional Igbo life as a consequence of European colonialism in Africa.
Chapter Three presents the Indo-Pakistani experiences of post-colonial turmoil captured by Salman Rushdie. His Midnight's Children and Shame can be considered as sociopolitical satires about India and Pakistan after their independences as well as aesthetic experimental quests for achieving unity in form and content. Brief attention is also paid to his controversial The Satanic Verses. Rushdian visions are also filled with Indian elements and post-colonial western skepticism.
"In Conclusion, I mention the significance of these three writers' works as anti-colonial discourse. In the post-colonial era, the voices of the (formerly) colonized are ""striking back"" at powerful colonial discourses."
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