Disease As Metaphor Of Identity Politics In The Island

Contemporary British female writer Victoria Hislop(1959-)displays a strong humanistic concern in her works.Hislop is skilled at placing characters in real historical events and pays high attention to the survival of marginalized and vulnerable groups.The story of her debut novel,The Island(2005),takes place on the real Greek island of Spinalonga where people with leprosy are isolated.With the starting point of Alexis searching for her own identity by tracing the past of her mother,Sofia,the novel tells the story of several generations of the Petrakis family who struggle against leprosy.Critics have studied this novel from various perspectives,including character portrayal,spatial narration,ecocriticism,and multiple themes.However,the fact that Hislop combines the writing of disease with identity construction of the characters in this novel to convey the cultural and political significance of the leprosy patients’ circumstances and changes,which is of social,cultural,and academic significance,has not yet received much attention in the academic field.This thesis takes The Island as the research object and,using theories such as identity politics and the Other,based on a close reading of the text,studies the evolution of the identity of the leprosy patients from the constructed “Other” to the reconstructing “Subject” and then to identification realization,trying to bring to light the author’s deep humanistic concern revealed in the manifestations of identity change.In Western literature,leprosy patients are generally considered a symbol of the unclean and sinful marginalized group.However,Hislop’s The Island deliberately subverts people’s traditional understanding of the leprosy patient’s image by taking leprosy as a metaphor,deconstructing the absolute position of the leprosy patient as the“Other”.Leprosy patients are often marginalized as the Other by mainstream healthy groups due to their frightening appearance owing to the disease,and during this process,they are often subject to discipline on the part of the healthy population.According to Wang Yue’s statements,the struggle of the marginalized “Other” in power relations reflects the practice of identity politics.The leprosy in The Island is closely related to identity politics in a metaphorical way.The practice of leprosy patients actively seeking to eliminate their identity of the constructed “Other” and reconstructing their status as the Subject is a manifestation of identity politics.This thesis mainly explores the following three aspects.Firstly,it discusses the process of and reasons for the construction of leprosy patients in the Petrakis family as the “Other” under the hierarchical concept.The leprosy “Others” isolated on the island called Spinalonga are constructed by the power discourse.The healthy “Subjects” use the moral concept of leprosy as impure and sinful in the Old Testament and the power such as quarantine and imprisonment to discipline the leprosy “Others”.Female leprosy patients are the victims of the dual “Othering”,first intentionally constructed as the Other by men in a male-dominated society,and then unintentionally constructed as the Other by themselves.Secondly,this thesis also discusses the interdependence between the reconstruction of subjectivity of the leprosy “Others” on the island and the dissolution of subjectivity of the healthy “Subjects” outside the island.The leprosy“Others” on the island rebuild their subjectivity through counter-gaze and community building.Meanwhile,the healthy population outside the island lose their subjectivity when seeing their kinship and neighborhood relationships destroyed by prejudice and betrayal.In addition,this thesis explores the process and path of mutual recognition of the “Subject” identity between the healthy community and the leprosy patients.The healthy people outside the island and leprosy patients inside the island achieve identification of each other as Subjects by forming independent personalities and accepting alterity.With ethical responsibility,the two Subjects break the binary opposition between healthy “Subjects” and diseased “Others” in the light of the metaphor of leprosy,building a harmonious community with intersubjectivity.Through the study of disease as metaphor of identity politics in The Island,this thesis finds that leprosy patients’ active reconstruction of subjectivity is of more social and cultural significance than passively accepting identities as the “Other”.Hislop also uses leprosy as a metaphor to express the understanding of the absolute “Otherness” of the leprosy patients.The marginalized leprosy “Others” can rebuild their subjectivity through counter-gaze and finding self-value through community building.Based on this,The Island offers the implication that true realization of subjectivity owes to the acknowledgment of others’ subjectivity and value.Only in this way can one be a meaningful Subject.