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1、1. Introduction Nadine Gordimer is a white author who lives in the country of South Africa. She is known for her excellent characters and the vivid details of her books. Her stories are written in the context of her South African experiences. She also writes about the previous challenges South Afric
2、a met under apartheid, at a time when society was split by race. She has written a large number of novels, Gordimers subject matters have been the effect of apartheid on the lives of South Africans and the moral and psychological tensions of life in a racially-divided country, which she often wrote
3、about by focusing on oppressed non-white characters. Gordimer explains many aspects of this problem in South Africa with her A Soldiers Embrace. Many writers and critics in China have done some research on Gordimer. Critics applaud Gordimers authentic portrayals of South African experience, and beli
4、eve that her fiction has given the world an understanding of the horrible racism in her country.Hu Zhongqing argued“Gordimer reveals fully subconsciousness in the depth of black peoples heart and oppressive metamorphic desire, which makes reader detect black in straitened circumstances under aparthe
5、id system”(Hu, 2007:177). Qu Shijing has divided Gordimers writings into two sections and made the conclusion that“ Gordimers outlook on arts is also her political perspective and outlook on life”(Qu,1998:156-160). Critics abroad are more than those in China. Gordimers orientation toward a non-racia
6、l or hybrid culture specific to South Africa is often admired. Stephen Clingman is the most typical representative in this respect. In his view,“Gordimer is firmly part of developing non-racial culture in South Africa”(Clingman,1993:xxxiv). And “at its broadest her struggle as a novelist lies in pro
7、gressing towards a new, integrated South African culture of the future”(Clingman,1993:4). In more radical views, Kathrin Wagner criticizes Gordimer as dealing with“the issue of post-colonial reality” but remaining“in essence enmeshed and entrapped in some archetypal colonialist paradigms in her deep
8、est psyche”(Wagner,1994:4). Her recurrent themes are not to reinforce but to deconstruct the categories of the apartheid dichotomy and unmask the ideology underlying it. Nadine Gordimer began to write at nine. At the age of thirteen, Gordimers first short story was published in the Liberal Johannesb
9、urg Magazine, Forum. From then on, her life has been devoted to her writing. She has never been opposing something intentionally; she wrote novels out of curiosity to life, expecting to explain what life and humanity are. However, born in a racially-divided country, this is what she feels familiar.
10、While many black writers were busying engaging national liberal revolution, and kept silent in literature. Gordimer insisted on the combination of public concerns and literary creation. She never gives up her deep concern for the fate of South Africa . The racially-divided system in South Africa wen
11、t against the public concern that everyone is equal. The system openly drew up law and put it into effect to deprive basic human rights of black people. During the time of being oppressed, the aboriginals in South Africa were continuously pushed to edge, and to be “other, losing basic human rights.
12、To overthrow the unequal treatment, black fighters persisted in fighting against white for a long time. Under the strong force from domestic and overseas, finally, black succeeded in regaining freedom. A Soldiers Embrace portrayed a white couple who sympathized and helped freedom fighters, when they
13、 celebrated revolutionary triumph; it reflected the relationship between black and themselves, and the relationship between revolution and themselves. The couples excited and happy emotion changed into sad and dreary of having to reflect themselves. The couple, for a short while, was unable to treat
14、 exactly black leaders after they obtained power. In the end, they had to leave their twenty one-year -old house. Throughout A Soldiers Embrace, Gordimer develops the theme of mans inhumanity to man through the political system in South Africa. Chapter2Though far from adequate, this part makes a sym
15、ptomatic reading of postcolonialism out of A Soldiers Embrace and this part also employs terminology of postcolonial theory for analysis. Often, the term postcolonialism is taken literally, to mean the period of time after colonialism. Griffiths regard postcolonialism itself as“a specific discourse
16、which nevertheless has neither a specific object nor definable set of non-discursive features; it is, at any given point, what it says it is. ”(Griffiths, 1989:154).In other words, it is important to accept the plural nature of the word postcolonialism, as it does not simply refer to the period afte
17、r the colonial era. By some definitions, postcolonialism can also be seen as“a continuation of colonialism, albeit through different or new relationships concerning power and the control/production of knowledge”(Sharp, J. 2008,230). What, then, is postcolonial theory?The emergence of postcolonial th
18、eory since the late 1980s signifies the dissolution of certain limited pedagogical objects such as Third World Literature, Colonial Discourse, New Literatures in English, even Comparative Literature in the strict sense and their reconstitution under the signs of cultural and philosophical postmodern
19、ities. This involves extending the meaning of postcolonialism to include any and all structures of power and domination, while, in another direction, also dissolving the difference between procedures of literary study and methodologies of historical study. (Said, 1993:124). Homi Bhabha is an influen
20、tial postcolonial critic, and the theory that is central to Bhabhas discourse on postcolonialism is that of hybridity, which“presents itself as a critique of essentialism, partakes of a carnivalesque collapse and play of identities, and comes under a great many names”(Bhabha,1994:64). Another import
21、ant theory is identity which means individualism and distinctive, it is decided by difference of culture Therefore, identity is” an unstable effect of relations which define identities by marking differences” (Hall, 1996:89). Identity marks our way in the world and provides a way of understanding th
22、e interplay between our subjective experience of the world and the cultural and historical construction of our subjectivity. In this part, these aspects of postcolonial theory and writers will be referred to in the examination of context of postcolonialsim in A Soldiers Embrace. 2.1 Hybridity embodi
23、ed in A Soldiers EmbraceThe first piece opens on a celebration of freedom. The blacks in this South African country have just won the right to govern themselves. They are dancing in the street, together with the white colonial soldiers who only yesterday were their enemies. As Nelson Mandela, who ha
24、d been kept in prison for twenty seven years because of participating in antiapartheid movement, said “one who is oppressed others and one who being oppressed both are supposed to gain liberation. It is hatred that drives people to despoil others liberty”(Mandela ,1978:153).The fighters are too exci
25、ted to remember what European peasant boys did to them before. The etiquette of greeting someone may vary from country to country. As we all know, in western countries, when people meet or say goodbye to their friend, they would embrace each other as thick as thieves or kiss each other on their chee
26、k. However, in Africa, people would hold their own hands, and shake hands before their eyes, or people would touch each others nose.Caught in the rejoicing throng, in the spirit of liberty; a white woman, on her way home, is blocked off by two soldiers clumsy embrace; she throws one arm around a bla
27、ck freedom fighter and the other around a white colonial soldier and kisses each on the cheek. The white cheek, the woman remembers, was“sallow and pimply;”(Gordimer,1990:420), the black showed a raw scar. She feels as if she is modeling for a poster, modeling for the idea of freedom. The soldiers s
28、he embraced smelled of death as well as sweat and soap. The technique of the story is gradually to develop the embrace of the white soldier and the black soldier. The two soldiers, one is white and the other is a black. They come from different nations and they have different cultural background. Th
29、ey both embrace people to show their excited and intimate feeling. This is a phenomenon of cultural hybridity. In post-colonial theory, hybridity refers to“the integration (or, mingling) of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures. The assimilation and adaptation o
30、f cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures, can be seen as positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as oppressive”(Bhabha,2004:37).“Hybridity is also “a useful concept for helping to break down the false sense that colonized cultures - or colonizing cultures for that matter - are mon
31、olithic, or have essential, unchanging features”(Bhabha,2004:45). In short, hybridity identifies the potential for identities to shift and/or merge, suggesting that encounters between different cultural identities can produce a new way of being.Many critics of post-colonialism argue that in post-col
32、onialist society, culture of colony and aboriginal and culture of colonizer present“condition of existing in each other” (Zhang zhongzai,2002:636). Hybridity thus “makes differences into sameness, and sameness into difference, but in a way that makes the same no longer the same, the different no lon
33、ger simply different”(Young 1995:26).HomikBhabha put forth his idea of hybridity to explain the very unique sense of identity shared and experienced individually by members of a former colonized people. He maintains that “members of a postcolonial society have an identity which has been shaped joint
34、ly by their own unique cultural and community history, intertwined with that of the colonial power.”(Bhabha,2004:45).With respect to culture, it is inclined to consider colonizer and people who are being colonized are not antagonistic to each other, they are always in a dilemma of interacting and im
35、itating each other.South Africa is a society whose political, cultural and lingual conditions are pretty particular. Even though it gains independence, there are still many white immigrants and aboriginals living together. Black fighter is the representative of aboriginals, while white soldier is on
36、 behalf of the culture of the colonizer. They live on the same land; their culture and life are influenced by each other. But at the same time, their own culture still exists. The unique characteristic of being colonized culture tenaciously kept alive during the process of cultural hybridity. The ap
37、pearance of cultural hybridity is not the foundation of disappearance of the traditional and independent culture of original inhabitants. You remember who this is, Muchanga? she had said when the visitor arrived, yet although the old man had given, in their own language, the sort of respectful greet
38、ing even an elder gives a young man whose clothes and bearing denote rank and authority.(Gordimer,1990:425)At that time in South Africa, black people spoke native language to express their true feelings when their black servant saw Muchanga, the couples black friend; they spoke their own language, u
39、sing etiquette of their own to greet each other so that the couple didnt understand at all. It is not hard to see that aboriginal culture has its place before the strong colonizng culture.2.2 Identity and self-reflection As the narrative indicates, the womans father is a long-standing colonial admin
40、istrator, while her husband is“a white liberal lawyer well known for his defense of blacks in political trials”(Gordimer,1990:421), the couple upholds the rights of the blacks. They have many black friends, and their servant is a black man who has serviced for the family for many years. After the bl
41、acks gain power, when the victorious blacks give him the freedom fighters salute(Gordimer,1990: 420),for example, he is thrilled, feeling a part of the new country. Gradually, they lost in meditating, and they feel confused; they even dont know how to confront the new government, which leads them to
42、 leave their house.Identity is important because it gives us a location in the world. It gives us an idea of who we are and functions as a link between us and the world. In The New Key Words: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture& Society, it is defined“to do with the imagined sameness of a person or of a
43、 social group at all times and in all circumstances; about a person or a group being, and being able to continue to be itself and not someone or something else”(Bennett et al,172).In other words, our identity marks the ways in which we are the same as those who share that position, and the ways in w
44、hich we are different from those who do not because it is usually defined by what it is not, and frequently“constructed in terms of oppositions” such as woman/man, black/white, culture/nature, self/other etc.(Woodward 2).As Hall puts it,“Identity is a structured representation which only achieves it
45、s positive through the narrow eye of the negative. It has to go through the eye of the needle of the other before it can construct itself ”(Hall,1990:21).Therefore, identity is“an unstable effect of relations which define identities by marking differences”(Hall,1996:89).In recent years, around the c
46、oncept of identity there has been a“veritable discursive explosion”(Hall,1996:1),thus it has become a word“in common currency”(Woodward1).The concept of identity is now subject to a searching critique because most contemporary discourses are critical of an“integral, originary and unified identity”(H
47、all,1996:1). According to Kobena Mercer, “identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of doubt and uncertainty”(Mercer 43). In our increasingly diverse and fragmented world, identity is a vibrant,complex,
48、and highly controversial concept.In the postcolonial text the problem of identity returns as a persistent questioning of the frame, the space of representation, where the image-missing person, invisible eye, oriental stereotype-is confronted with its difference.In this atmosphere of instability, the
49、 lawyer tries to secure a position for himself, as“one would expect of him” (Gordimer,1990:426). The couple makes great efforts to the revolution. Since the cease-fire was signed; the lawyer takes great pleasure from feeling, as does his wife, a part of the celebration; and he looks to assume a significant position in the new majority government. The Africans had their own ways of resolving such redistribution of goods. And “