A Post-colonial Study Of Bharati Mukherjee’s Works

In1940,Bharati Mukherjee was born in a rich family in Calcutta,West Bengal, India. Then she immigrated to United States in1961, and got her PhD. in the University of Iowa. Now she lives in States. Because of her cross-cultural experience, her works mainly focus on the female exiles in the third world. She often keeps an eye on Indian females, who have to face to cultural imperialism, racial and gender discriminations. This thesis attempts to use the theory of post-colonialism to analyze her three stages’ works from feminist perspective. It discusses Indian women’s endeavors to break the suppressions from race, gender and class and make their voice heard as well as Mukherjee’s transformation of identity, finally turning their "other" image into "self.The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to Bharati Mukherjee, her literary works and the stereotype of Indian women or the third world women as a whole. They are marginalized and silenced in the mainstream American society.Chapter two makes an analysis of the protagonists in her works. They remain silent and put in the positions of "other" while receiving oppressions from patriarchal society and hegemony. Both the post-colonialism and feminism place women’s inequality in priority and help the marginalized groups to regain their rights. The postcolonial feminism, under influences from the above two theories, contends "race","gender","class" should be included in the study of the living status of the third world women.Chapter three analyzes different ways of resisting the hegemonic discourse. The third world women are struggling to regain their rights and break the silence within the hegemonic discourse.Chapter four analyzes the reconstruction of the protagonists’ identity after Mukherjee’s three writing stages. They are the reflection of Mukherjee. After forty years of writing,Mukherjee finally reconstructs her own identity.The transformation of protagonists’ ending in her works clearly displays a successful model for the third world women in regard to how to position themselves in the first world.Chapter five is the conclusion. It reemphasizes the practical meaning of studies on reconstruction of Mukherjee’s identity and protagonists’resistance strategies, pointing out the importance of post-colonial studies on her works from feminism perspective.