Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
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Eddie Tay, Colony, Nation, and Globalisation: Not at Home in Singaporean and Malaysian Literature
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John Peter Peterson or Jemubhai Popatlal Patel?: “The Uncanny†Doubleness and “Cracking†of Identity in Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss
No full textThe condition of diaspora is born of a twin process of displacement from familiar systems of knowledge and the emergence of other spaces in a transnational sphere of communication. While these spaces may hold promises of liberation for the individual, they can also become spaces of entrapment because these are in-between spaces constructed on ideologies unique to them.  Revisiting some theories of diaspora that define these in-between as spaces of empowerment, this article aims to address the complications that attend the birth of the diasporic spaces in order to explore whether such spaces can be non-negotiable spaces of empowerment. It can be established that claims of empowerment are a result of a strategically imagined identity and such identity is easily challenged by the fluidity of these spaces which makes home “unheimlich.â€Â  This article examines the portrayal of Jemubhai Patel in Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss (2006) through his experiences in colonial, postcolonial and postnational spaces of India in order to identify what makes India a diasporic space for him, and how he needs to repeatedly strategise performance of his perceived identity to survive in these spaces. However, all attempts at survival are challenged by the fluidity of these spaces, which in turn, make the home space “unheimlich†and, the experience of living in these spaces, “uncanny.â
The Poetics and Politics of Cultural Studies in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
Get PDFAravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) can easily be placed in the gamut of Cultural Studies since it shares most of the features of this school. For example, it can easily be analysed as a form of cultural resistance to homogenising capitalism, as the emphasis throughout is on the particularities of the proletariat suppressed under the dominant high culture. But what strikes one as odd is that this particular class has been undermined in the text to such an extent that the writer not only fails to redefine the social order but also ends up as a spokesperson of the conventional Eurocentric perspective of the East to the extent that it has led literary critics to debate how far he fits a Western cosmopolitan model of writing. This paper, therefore, attempts to unravel these diametrically opposed strands in the fabric of The White Tiger as Adiga while silencing certain voices ends up allowing the narcissism of the Western culture raise its garrulous head
Women as Sex Objects in Azizi Haji Abdullah’s Novel Bila Hujan Malam: A Critical Appraisal
Get PDFThis article analyses Azizi Haji Abdullah's novel Bila Hujan Malam to determine critical claims of its literary merit. Using the analytical framework Persuratan Baru advanced by the local writer and critic, Mohd Affandi Hassan, that distinguishes between story and knowledge, the article unpacks “women as sex objects†as the novel's main perception, which Azizi structures into the story by means of four narrative strategies. The strategies centre round firstly, using selected aspects of the “unexplained antecedent†technique, secondly, making molestation that strips women of control and agency as the only form of sexual union available, thirdly, providing a context conducive to sexual exploitation, and fourthly, denying a role for women other than that of a sex object. The article argues that, contrary to claims of its literary merit, the novel prioritises iniquity as a valid aesthetic and literary expression, at the same time as it makes discourse/knowledge irrelevant to its structuring. In so doing, it operates as a novel only on the level of story and story making. This article thus concludes that Bila Hujan Malam is no more than an erotic novel. It also calls into question several literary conventions regarded as mainstream in Malay literature
