Dialogue In The Multicultural Context

Salman Rushdie is one of the most sensational writers in the literary world in the 1980s and 1990s.He is the leading man in the literary world,and is regarded as the godfather of post-colonial English literature.Midnight 's Children brings him international fame,which wins the Booker of Bookers in the Prize's first forty years in 2008.It is taken as the latest and most excellent contribution of Indian fiction in London Review of Books.And,critics from New York Review of Books think it is the most important book of this generation in English literature.The hero,Saleem,tactfully combines the destiny of the family and the individual with the history.There are also fantasy,myth and other various cultural elements presented in the novel.It deserves to be called an everything book.This thesis bases on Bakhtin 's dialogical theory and the historical background of India,discloses the diversified cultural environment from the perspectives of polyphonic dialogue and carnivalesque dialogue in Midnight's Children,and presents the communication and conflicts between various cultures.The core of Bakhtin's theory is dialogism.In his opinion,dialogue is the way of being for different cultures and languages in diversified world and no matter what time is it,only through dialogue,various cultures and languages can coexist in equal position.Polyphone and carnival are two major parts in Bakhtinian theory.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One has three parts,including general introduction of Salman Rushdie and his work,Midnight's Children,literature review,and general argument and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two is about general introduction to Bakhtinian theory.Chapter Three is about the polyphonic dialogue in Midnight's Children from macro-dialogue and micro-dialogue.The macro-dialogue mainly displays in two aspects,one is the dialogue between the hero and the author,the other is the dialogue between different cultures.The micro-dialogue refers to multi-voicedness and double-voiced discourse presented in Midnight's Children.Chapter Four analyzes the carnivalesque dialogue from the aspects of the carnivalization of artistic thinking and carnivalesque images.Chapter Five is a conclusion.