后殖民主义角度解析《野草在歌唱》_英语论文

Analysis of The Grass Is Singing From the Perspective of Post-colonialism

摘要

《野草在歌唱》是英国著名作家多丽丝·莱辛的成名作，展现了20世纪三四十年代南非地区的殖民现实，反映了殖民统治下殖民者与被殖民者生活得艰苦。小说自问世以来，便备受推崇，不少学者都对它进行了不同角度的解读，他们主要是从玛丽的形象、小说写作技巧和后殖民主义这三个方面进行了研究，但从后殖民主义角度对其进行分析的并不多，并且有且仅有的研究尚颇有争议。后殖民主义又叫后殖民批判主义，兴起于20世纪70年代末，是一个极富意识形态色彩的文学批评流派，其所有的话语实践都基于欧洲殖民主义历史事实及其造成的后果。本文基于前人对野草在歌唱的研究，从后殖民主义角度解析三个主人公的悲剧原因，认为小说中人物的悲剧是白人殖民制度、种族歧视政策和父权制社会下的必然结果。本文作者希望本研究可以帮助读者更好地理解小说的主题和形式，了解个人与社会是密不可分的。 

关键词：野草在歌唱；后殖民主义；种族歧视；悲剧根源

Abstract

The Grass is Singing is the masterpiece of the English writer Doris Lessing. The novel shows the colonial reality of South Africa in the 30s and 40s of the twentieth Century, and reflects the hard life of the colonists and the colonized under colonial rule. Since its publication, the novel has been highly praised and respected. Many scholars have interpreted it from different angles. They have studied the novel mainly in the following three aspects: Mary's image, the novel's writing skills and post colonialism. However, there is not much research on it from the perspective of post colonialism and the little research done from that angle have caused much controversy. Post colonialism is also called post-colonial criticism. It sprang up in the late 1970s and is an ideological genre of literary criticism based on the historical facts of European colonialism and its consequences. Based on the previous studies on The Grass is Singing, this paper analyzes the causes of the tragedy of the three protagonists from the perspective of post colonialism. This thesis comes to the conclusion that the tragedies of the characters in the novel is the inevitable consequence of the white colonial system, the policy of racial discrimination and the patriarchal society. The writer of this thesis hopes this study will help readers better understand the theme of the novel, and form the belief that the individual and the society are inseparable.

Keywords: The Grass Is Singing; post colonialism; racial discrimination; tragic origin

Contents

1. Introduction·1

2The research status of The Grass is Singing1

3The introduction of the Postcolonial theory1

3.1Definition of post colonialism·1

3.2The representatives of post colonialism and their main ideas·2

4Colonial Elegy·2

4.1The tragedy of Mary·2

4.1.1Childhood shadow·2

4.1.2Marital misery3

4.1.3Narrow racial consciousness·4

4.2The tragedy of Mose·5

4.2.1The struggle between a strong society and a weak individual5

4.2.2The tangle between Mose’s love and hate of Mary5

4.3 The tragedy of Dick·6

4.3.1Farm frustration·6

4.3.2Ambiguity of identity·7

4.3.3His ignorance to Mary’s agony and despair8

Conclusion·9

Acknowledgements10

References·11