Retelling The Other And The Self

Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’s representative works in which he propagates imperialism with a set of binary oppositions such as the Occident/the Orient and the Self/the Other. Jack-Maggs, written by Australian novelist Peter Carey, is a rewriting of Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations. In Jack Maggs, Carey interprets Maggs from a different perspective. He recreates the convict Magwitch into a man of virtue who named Jack Maggs, opening the veil of the convict’s secrets, giving him the right to speak and putting him in the center of the stage. Through the textual analysis of the two novels in light of Edward Said’s postcolonial theories, the thesis aims to reveal the subversion in Jack Maggs toward the Self/Other binary opposition which is constructed by Dickens, correct the distorted history created by imperialists as well as construct an equal identity of the two nations.This paper falls into five parts. The first chapter gives a brief overview of Peter Carey’s life, his major works, research status at home and abroad as well as theoretical basis of the thesis. Chapter Two analyzes Carey’s reverse writing of narrative strategies. By comparing the difference in narrative perspectives and the narrative techniques of the two novels, this part investigates the subversion of the imperial order and the imperial hegemonic discourse constructed in Great Expectations which is demonstrated in Jack Maggs. Chapter Three focuses on the subversion of the characters in the novel and draws the conclusion that the otherness of Australian ancestors and female images are rectified in Jack Maggs. The fourth chapter discusses the subversion of ethnic identity and class identity to deconstruct the Australian "otherness" status and the superiority of Victorian middle-class identity constructed in Great Expectations. The fifth chapter is the conclusion part which expresses Carey’s appeal on the elimination of the binary oppositions and the construction of equal identity.