Homi Bhabha's Postcolonial Criticism And A Case Study On Its Significance For Postcolonial Translation Research

This dissertation is an attempt at explicating and illustrating Homi Bhabha's postcolonial criticism and an exploration of how (post)colonial translation can be inspired by the famous critic. Based on that, famous Chinese dramatist Hong Shen's translation and adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan is studied to test Bhabha's postcolonialism to see whether his theories have the potentiality to shed light on (post)colonial translation studies. The dissertation differs from all previous relevant research in the fact that it tries to capture the elusive Bhabha in the Chinese (semi)colonial context, which has almost never been done among Chinese scholars yet. Consequently, Lu Xun and other important Chinese intellectuals of the early 20th century China are studied in Bhabha's postcolonial perspective, which results in new understanding of these important cultural figures'relevant thinking; on the other hand, the very frustratingly obscure Bhabha is explained via Lu Xun and others. Postcolonial translation studies have been fashionably done in recent years, but almost no scholars have done them more or less systematically in light of Bhabha's postcolonial criticism, as the second part of this dissertation has done. The final part is also unprecedented in that it is the first to study Hong Shen's translation and adaptation of that comedy by Wilde in the framework of the postcolonial theories.This dissertation consists of three parts, the first of which is an extended illustration of Homi Bhabha's postcolonial criticism. What distinguishes Bhabha from all other postcolonial critics is his disruption of the binarism of colonialism and resistance between colonists and the colonized. Instead of starting at anti-colonialism, he sets out from the struggling individuals in colonial cultures. In place of the metanarrative of colonial dominance, oppression and depression and the ensuing rebellion and resistance, he pushes in his micronarratives of colonial cultural processes and moments. He stresses objective descriptions over moral prescriptions and accusations. His priority lies with individuals rather than nations and other organizations. In cultural engagements, he finds more negotiations than exploitations. His observations lead to anti-colonialism, which, however, is only part, definitely not the whole, of his conclusion. What have been obscured by anti-colonialism, the ambivalent cultural processes and moments, are the focus of his interest. He believes that a study unreflectively beginning with and complacently ending with anti-colonialism is too politicized to be politically effective or powerful. That's why he professes commitment to theory and asserts that academic efforts, like all artistic or literary performances, are political production in themselves. Unlike all other postcolonial critics, Bhabha's concept of the colonial subject contains both the colonists and the colonized, highlighting his finding that colonial culture's alienating effects can be seen on both parties, which predicts the final collapse of colonialism. Another of his major breakthroughs is his deconstruction of the myth of colonial stereotyping. Edward Said's detection of the massive stereotyping in colonial discourse and its mind-poisoning effect has long been popular and influential, but Bhabha finds ambivalence in both the motives and functions of colonial stereotypes by comparing their underlying psychological process to that of fetishism based on Jacques Lakan's relevant speculations. To analyze and present the processes and moments of colonial culture, Bhabha has invented many new terms and consistently used them, including ambivalence, colonial mimicry, cultural difference, and hybridity, which have become phenomenally popular and extensively quoted and borrowed. The second part of the dissertation speculates on how postcolonial translation study could be inspired by Bhabha's theories. So far, postcolonial translation study has been dominated by the metanarrative of colonialism and resistance, overshadowing numerous stories outside. Based on Bhabha's manifestation of the various processes and moments of colonial culture, we might as well return to micronarratives, to supplement (in the double sense of complement and substitute) the metanarratives. In addition, Bhabha's postcolonial analyses convince us of recognizing the productivity of (post)colonial translation, such as its potential power in transforming schemata, its stimulating effect for individuals'mental empowerment and growth and cultures' pluralisation and development, and its assistance in organizing, mobilizing and promoting public cultural spheres, where individuals and folk forces may be inspired and empowered. Translation is not the perpetrators of cultural inequalities; on the contrary, the potential colonizing effects of translation are their end product. The third part of this dissertation is a case study on Hong Shen's translation and adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. As a colonial subject, Hong Shen the translator displays his hybridities and his ambivalence. In the light of Bhabha's postcolonial criticism, one can find, in Hong Shen's translation, foreignization, which catered to the needs of the Chinese audience in the 1920s when the country, under the pressure of the menacing powers waiting around and present in many parts of its territory, was struggling to learn from foreign cultures. However, accidental affinities between the Wildean play and its Chinese audiences'structure of feelings, and concept of retribution, and the fan, as a prominent prop, which rings a special bell in the Chinese culture, also account for the translated and adapted play's enthusiastic reception in China. Also significant are the large amounts of transformation of cultural messages in the translation. As for the ostensible and latent Christian references in the play, they are almost all eliminated. Such a translation well stages the complicated processes of cultural imposition, reception, mimicry, transformation (parody), resistance, and hybridizing, which are often found in (post)colonial situations, and illuminates Bhabha's postcolonial cultural observations.