The Loss And Construction Of Cultural Identity

Canada and Australia have been colonized by European settlers for a long history. The indigenous people suffer severe oppression during the colonial times. Indigenous women as "double outsider" are excluded from the mainstream culture and patriarchal power. Maria Campbell’s autobiographical novel Halfbreed is valued as the landmark of the Renaissance of contemporary Canadian Native literature. As a representative text of the Sally Morgan, My Place is praised as the. very beginning of root-seeking in Australian literature and has pushed the Aboriginal literary creation to a new height.Through an analysis of the two representative Aboriginal works from the perspective of cultural identity, the thesis demonstrates that both novels center around the pursuit of female cultural identity in general and also reveals the hard course of ethnic women for seeking the self under the cultural oppressions in terms of racism. Maria in Halfbreed survives between two cultures, leading to the loss of cultural identity. Sally in My Place suffers from the cultural alienation, and silenced by loss of cultural identity. After a series of hard pursuit, they both take literary writing as a powerful arm to articulate their own voices from the perspective of Aboriginal females. Finally, Maria is awakened through remembering of family memory and ethnic culture, Sally flings herself into a root-seeking journey to explore her family history and native culture.Research on Canadian and Australian Aboriginal literatures in China has not been conducted as much as that on British and American literature. It is very significant to analyze Halfbreed and My Place with a focus on the arduous pursuit progress of cultural identity for Canadian and Australian females. In today’s global multicultural background, studies on the novels will be helpful for us to understand Canadian and Australian native history, culture and living conditions more objectively and comprehensively, and further, will provide some references for China to preserve and develop its ethnic culture.