Analysis Of The Marginalized People In Staying On From The Perspective Of Post-colonialism

Paul Scott is a very important British novelist who writes the Indian theme in the20thcentury. He published13novels in his lifetime, most of which relate to India.Staying On was published in1977and won Man Booker Prize in the same year. Inthis novel, Scott reflects on the complicated relationships between Britain and Indiain the post-colonial period and probes deeply into three types of marginalizedpeople’s image in Indian society. The thesis adopts some key concepts ofpost-colonialism like “marginality”,“mimicry” and “the Third Space” to make a deepanalysis of those three kinds of typical people marginalized by the new Indian society.By doing so, the author of the thesis intends to provide some guidance for somepeople marginalized by the modern society to better know themselves and to face theplight of existence more actively.This thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the body and theconclusion.In the introduction part, the author of the thesis discusses Scott’s story of his life,the plot of Staying On and the current researches on the novel at home and abroad.The body of the thesis is composed of three chapters.The first chapter mainly explores the difficult situations of the marginalizedBritish couple who stay on in India after its independence. Firstly, it examines thefollowing two aspects: the double-marginalized wife in her own family and in theBritons’ social circle within the rigid hierarchy and the suspended husband due to thecontradiction between his grand illusion and nostalgia for Englishness and the harshreality of his diminishing social position. Then the writer of this thesis continuouslyanalyzes the contradictory attitudes of the English couple: Psychologically, they havethe white men’s inevitable racial superiority, pride and prejudice while in reality, theyneed and depend on Indian friends everywhere.The second chapter analyzes features of the native Indians mimicking theirformer English colonizers in the novel from three aspects. First of all, this thesis discusses the reasons why the native Indians inevitably mimic their former Britishcolonizers though India has achieved independence. The external cause of thissituation can come down to the remains of the British colonization in Indians’ mindwhile the internal cause is Indians’ inferiority complex after they have suffered in thelong period of colonization. Secondly, we will move on to explore the phenomena ofsome native Indians who admire their British masters on many levels but contempttheir own country fellows through the application of Fanon’s mimicry ideas. Finally,Homi Bhabha’s mimicry ideas are used to discuss at length some native Indians whoattempt to subvert the English tradition of gender right and take revenge on theBritish couple who stay on in India in the manner of mimicry.The third chapter focuses on issues of the Eurasians’ identity dilemma. First,through analysis of the Eurasian girl Susy in the novel, the thesis displays theEurasians’ cultural and social marginality and features of their inevitable predicamentof identity due to their intrinsic racial hybridity and rootlessness. Second, the authorof the thesis examines how Susy can spare no effort to reconstruct the communicativeplatform between the British and the Indians by making good use of the advantage ofher mixed-blood identity to change the stereotypical image of the Eurasians in themind of the British and the Indians and win the affection and respect from both sides.At last, the writer of the thesis draws a conclusion that those three types ofmarginalized people should take more active stance in shaking off the marginalizedexistence instead of passive acceptance of their marginalized identity.