Mimicking and Disrupting Binary Opposition - Salman Rushdie"s Midnight"s Children

• 영문명: Mimicking and Disrupting Binary Opposition
• 발행기관: 한국영미어문학회
• 저자명: Kyeong-Kyu Im(임경규)
• 간행물 정보: 『영미어문학』영미어문학 제82호, 17~39쪽, 전체 23쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2007.03.30

영문 초록

  This essay aims to read Salman Rushdie"s Midnight"s Children as a critique of the oppressive Hegelian binary logic, which is embedded in not only British colonial narratives but also dominant Indian nationalist thoughts and practices both before and after independence. Methodologically, I use what Homi Bhabha theorized as "mimicry," and interpret the novel as Rushdie"s strategic mimicking and mocking of the binary logic. This essay consists in two parts. In the first half, I examine Rushdie"s diasporic position and illuminate how his interstitial location as a writer enables him to deconstruct both Western hegemonic and Indian nationalist representation of India. As an India-born British writer, Rushdie has been criticized for his putative lack of ability to portray "authentic" India. Yet his lack of authenticity can rather be a sign that he can play with two ways of seeing - both insider"s and outsider"s, which allows him a discursive space in which he can rearticulate the oppressive binary logic imposed upon him by both Western hegemonic discourse and Indian nationalist narrative. In the second half, I closely read the opening part of the novel as allegorizing Indian bourgeois nationalists" nation-building. Rushdie"s allegorical description by and large repeats the Western hegemonic discourse, which, however, can be seen as a deliberate imitation that is meant to break down the duality of self and other, culminating in envisaging an alternative form of identity that transcends the rigid binary opposition.

키워드

Salman Rushdie Midnight" s Children binary logic interstitiality nation allegory mimicking identity hybridity culture