Interpretation Of The Theme Of Midnight's Children From The Perspective Of Postcolonial Feminism

Salman Rushdie who is hailed as the godfather of post-colonialism has a tremendous influence on contemporary literary world. His masterpiece Midnight's Children has caught the eyeballs of scholars both domestic and overseas since it was published in 1981. This novel brings Rushdie a lot of literary awards, including Booker. In 2008, Midnight's Children stands out from numerous works and wins the Best of Booker in the past forty years.Based on Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Spivak's postcolonial feminism, this thesis tries to interpret Rushdie's postcolonial feminism thought as well as his concern on the rights and status of the third world women which reflected in Midnight's Children.Introduction part tells general information of Rushdie and Midnight's Children. According to the study on Midnight's Children both domestic and overseas, the author of this thesis gets the conclusion that it will become a brand new starting point and breakthrough to apply postcolonial feminism for the study on both Rushdie and Midnight's Children.The first chapter, the theory part, introduces the form and development of Spivak's postcolonial feminism, what's more, compares postcolonial feminism with other feminism and summarizes three main theory contents which are the evidences to interpret the postcolonial feminism theme reflected in Midnight's Children.The second chapter discusses the criticism of postcolonial feminism on the imperialism influence in colony reflecting in Midnight's Children. The criticism reflects in three parts. The first part is political influence. According to the exposedness of imperialist Methwold's secrets, the hypocritical perfect image of Methwold in front of Indian is completely smashed, which indicates that the imperialism political influence in colony declines; the second part is economical influence. The monopoly position of East Indian Company is broken in Midnight's Children, which reveals that the imperialism economical influence in colony goes downhill; the third part is cultural influence. Based on the analysis on the decay of Aziz who is the worshiper towards western culture, the imperialism cultural influence in colony also goes to its end. The third chapter discusses the criticism of postcolonial feminism on patriarchy influence in colony reflecting in Midnight's Children. Based on the analysis on the degeneration of masculinity as well as the reducing male influence on both family and society, the superiority of men in bisexual relations, family and society is collapsed. Therefore, the devastation of patriarchy oppression over the third world women in Midnight's Children is dug out.The fourth chapter is the innovative part. The author of this thesis applies Spivak's postcolonial feminism which criticizes on the first world women to interpret the rising of female character in the novel on family status, social status and historical influence, which embodies Rushdie's postcolonial feminism thought and his concern on the third world women.The conclusion summarizes the postcolonial feminism theme reflected in Midnight's Children and claims that the thorough emancipation of women should be founded on the fight against imperialism, colonialism, patriarchy as well as the first world women.