Post-colonialist Elements In Michael Ondaatje's Novels

As a literary school, post-colonialism receives more and more attention from the literary critics and writers, especially those from the formal colonies. This thesis starts with analyzing the connotation of post-colonialism as embodied in Edward Said's Orientalism(1979).Among the critics concerning the post-colonialism, Said presents us a special view on the effect of colonization. He puts forward his Orientalism, which criticizes the so-called "achievements" of the westerners by means of analyzing some English classic literary works. He holds that on the basis of colonization, the westerner have formed a whole set of recognition about the east, from which the Orientalism takes shake. According to Said, this recognition is by no means impartial but biased. In the eyes of the westerners, the colonial people, chiefly east people are ignorant, benighted, and backward and deserved to be ruled. So, Orientalism, in the eyes of Said, has become a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.The second part of this thesis attempts to do further study on post-colonialism by analyzing the Canadian immigrant writer Michael Ondaatje's two Governor-General's-Award winning novels The English Patient and Anil's Ghost. Born in the east while educated in the west, Ondaatje, like Said, bears resentment on colonization. In the formal novel, Ondaatje depicts the11They are more or less related to the process of colonialism. In the second novel, Ondaatje deliberately chooses his homeland, Sri Lanka, which has been in the abyss of civil war since 1980s. Through this novel, Odaatje exposes to readers the residual influences of colonialism.In general, Said the critic and Ondaatje the writer coincide in interpreting the connotation of post-colonialism in their respective writings. This is the main standpoint this thesis tries to illustrate.