The Postcolonial Studies Of The Jack Maggs

Jack Maggs, written by Peter Carey in 1997, is a postcolonial novel that attempts to "rewrite" Australian colonial history, resist realism literary tradition under the ideology of British imperialism and reconstruct Australia’s national identity. On the basis of the intensive reading of the novel and on theoretical basis of The Empire Writes Back written by Australian theorist Bill Ashcoft et al and relevant theories of Spivak, Elleke Boehmer et al, the paper attempts to analyze the novel from the perspective of post-colonial literature.This paper is divided into five parts:The introduction part briefly introduces life experience and works of Peter Carey, awards won by Jack Maggs and the major contents of the book as well as its position in Carey’s works. This part also introduces the theoretical basis and the domestic and overseas study review of Jack Maggs.Chapter one analyzes postcolonial writing characteristics of Jack Maggs from three aspectappropriation. intertextural writing and genres hybridity and pluralistic narrative. The novel appropriates experience and interrelation of Magwitch and Pip in Great Expectations and arranges virtual character Oates to form intertextuality with realistic writer Charles Dickens. There is intertextuality between creation processes of both books. Meanwhile, the novel breaks the traditional concept of literature genres, integrates traditional novel, epistolary style and metafiction and applies intermittently third-person narrative perspective and first-person narrative perspective, forming a post-colonial text of exceptional features.Chapter two makes analysis of the theme of Jack Maggs from the perspective of post-colonial literature, considering that the novel amends the image of early immigrants to Australia, displays psychological predicament of early immigrants to Australia and realizes self-identification of national identity with difficulty.The third chapter analyzes the limitations of post-colonial writing of the novel. On the one hand, the Aborigines remain marginalization and aphasia state. On the other hand, the image Mercy and the ambiguous ending unconsciously put Australian people and Australian culture under the control of British people and the British culture.Peter Carey also participates in the process of letting westerners better observe others. At the same time the paper explores the reasons of limitations that presented by Jack Maggs on post-colonization, which is associated with his identity as a migrant writer and his own experience as well as solidification of the concept of "literature".The final part makes a brief conclusion. Though there are some limitations, the novel Jack Maggs is an excellent post-colonial book and Peter Carey is a good nationalist and postcolonial writer.