A Study Of Isak Dinedsen’s Colonial Merhant Identity From The Persepctive Of Narratology

Isak Dinesen is one of the most influential Danish writers in contemporary world.She has been nominated the candidate of Nobel literature prize for twice, even ErnestHemingway commended that Dinesen should be the Nobelist rather than himself.Dinesen’s best known works Out of Africa tells about her experience of managing acoffee farm from1914to1931in Africa.During that period, Dinesen owned multiple identities including Europeanaristocrat, colonial merchant, hunter, environmentalist, humanist, storyteller and so on.Though as a remarkable identity, colonial merchant has often been ignored by reviewers.There are specific significances in Dinesen’s colonial merchant identity: first, itprovided her the opportunity and foundation to transcend colonialism and patriarchy;second, due to the multiple dilemmas which brought about by her colonial merchantidentity, there are a lot of complex contradictions in the narrations of Out of Africa,which have led to competing arguments about Dinesen’s identity; third, this identity hasinfluenced Dinesen’s whole life, even after she left Africa, it has brought stronginfluence to her future life and literary creation.In this thesis, classical narratology and postclassical narratology will be used tofocus on the narrative content in Out of Africa which relate to Dinesen’s colonialmerchant identity, analyze the dilemmas of her identity and further inquire into thecontradictions in the narrations which brought about by the identity dilemmas. Throughthis process, it intends to get a more comprehensive understanding of the contradictionsin Dinesen’s viewpoints to colonialism and patriarchy. Based on this, it tries toreevaluate Dinesen’s colonial merchant identity in a more objective perspective amongthe debates. Of course, Dinesen is just a typical example of the colonial merchant in thatcommunity. So this thesis also intends to give an objective assessment to all thehumanistic colonial merchants who were similar to Dinesen, confirm their historicaladvancement as colonial merchants and their positive meanings to the colony.The main body of the thesis will be divided into the following three chapters:Chapter one will elaborate the development process of Dinesen’s identity, to see how she became a colonial merchant and what the basic characteristics of her colonialmerchant identity are.Chapter two will analyze the multiple dilemmas brought about by Dinesen’scolonial merchant identity and explore the complex relationships between her and thesurrounding environment.In chapter three, it will analyze the narrative contradictions in Out of Africa basedon Dinesen’s identity dilemmas. Through this process it tries to get a comprehensiveunderstanding of Dinesen’s colonial merchant identity.