عنوان

Narratives of voice and silence :

Number

TLets547402

Title Proper

Narratives of voice and silence :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

D'Souza, Karen

Title Proper by Another Author

reading South Asian women's writing through the work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

The Manchester Metropolitan University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2011

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

The Manchester Metropolitan University

Text preceding or following the note

2011

Text of Note

This thesis reinvigorates the subaltern theory of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak through theapplication of her work to readings of fiction in English by South Asian women. Thewriters included in the study are rooted in the contemporary nation states of India,Pakistan and Bangladesh and their Diasporas. The thesis argues for the endurance ofSpivak's focus on issues of representation and her recognition of the problematichistory of theoretical inattention to the ways in which gender inflects retrieval of thesubaltern voice. The insights generated by her work frame this investigation of howliterary narratives may replicate the shadowy presence of women in the archives of thepostcolonial nation. It also demonstrates how literary strategies and double-voicednarratives intrinsically seek to complicate understandings of voice and silence withinparticular frames of understanding. Thus, the study registers how literary interventionsnegotiate the complex positioning of women within and between indigenous culturaltraditions.Mapping out a politics of voice and silence in South Asian contexts, the introductorychapter critiques three key ideas embedded in Spivak's theory: subject-formation of thesubaltern; the relationship between subalternity and textuality; and how hegemonicstructures are vexed by considerations of gender. The connections between thesetheoretical considerations and literary representation are made through a considerationof the pertinent debates related to South Asian women's writing and the possibilities fora gendered subaltern voice-consciousness. Chapter Two examines Anita Desai's Voicesin the City (1965) alongside Nayantara Sahgal's Rich Like Us (1985) as they depict theearly periods of nation building in post-Independence India. Chapter Three considersThe Thousand Faces of Night (1992) by Githa Hariharan for its evocations ofcontemporary India contingent upon the relationship between traditional mythology andgender constructions. A trajectory tracing patterns of female subalternity is thencompleted in Chapter Four with a discussion of two novels critically exploring thecontinuities of cultural encodings in transnational settings which are inflected bydiasporic histories and movements. Kamila Shamsie's Salt and Saffron (2000) andMonica Ali's Brick Lane (2003) are read for their exploration of the tensions betweennationalist identities and notions of home which influence constructions of selfhood.The application of Spivak's work to critical readings of South Asian women's writingsituates the literature as a subaltern history. The interplay of theory and practice definessubalternity as a fluid and unsettled category of being to frame a comprehensiveunderstanding of women's positioning within the discourses of nation; it registerschanges in the concerns articulated in post-Independence South Asian writing; itprovides nuanced critical readings of fiction alert to key literary and culturaldevelopments. The thesis extends and develops Spivak's treatment of historical silenceto identify how literature might form an alternative archive attuned to the complexitiesof voicing the subaltern figure.

D'Souza, Karen

The Manchester Metropolitan University

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y