The Analysis Of Naipaul’s In A Free State With Homi Bhabha’s Postcolonial Theory

Post-colonial theory has been given concern by literary circle and critics since it appeared in 1970s. It brings a new perspective for critic world in terms of literature and literary criticism. Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi BhaBha are called "Holy Trinity" of postcolonial theory. Homi Bhabha is the influential one of postcolonial critics. This dissertation mainly uses Homi Bhabh’s theory such as "mimicry", "third space" and "hybridity" to analyze the novel.Naipaul is a well-known contemporary post-colonial writer. In 2001, he was awarded Nobel Prize in literature. The Swedish Academy praised his works as "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories". In a Free State is an important work of Naipaul’s that displays his creative style and literary themes. In 1971, it was awarded Booker Prize, the most authoritative literature prize in Britain. This novel is a collection of novelette, including five stories. These five stories are strung with the conflicts and twisted colonial relations of different cultures and are of strong art characteristic.This thesis has an analysis of In a Free Sate with Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theory and it is consisted of five parts. The first part mainly introduces Naipaul’s career life, creation achievements, the major content of In a Free State that this thesis intends to analyze and its characteristics as well as relevant literature research about this work and the present research situation of Naipaul’s novels; The second part introduces and explains the development of post-colonial theory, Homi Bhabha and the main content of his theory; The third part focuses on analyzing the ex-colony nation’s and people’s mimicry of suzerain from many aspects with Homi Bhabha’s mimicry theory and points out the devastating influence on politics, economy and culture that colonial domination of western suzerain has on ex-colony and its people; The fourth part mainly gives an analysis on the difficult living state and psychological predicament of people from ex-colony from the perspective of Homi Bhabha’s third space theory. Faced with the impact of west culture, they feel at lost and helpless and they not succeed in constructing their own cultural third space. The fifth part summarizes the main content of this thesis and points out that the conflicts of different cultures this fiction reflects and the colonial ruling of west countries on the third world especially the control and damage of African countries.