Reconstruction Of History And Cultural Hybridity:A Post-colonial Analysis Of Mda's Novels

Zakes Mda is one of the most important black writers in South Africa who writes in English during and after the period of post-apartheid.He has published many plays and novels which make him an outstanding writer in the history of modern and contemporary literature in South Africa.Mda is good at depicting the traditional African history and the reality of contemporary society by means of magic realism in the novels;he is good at portraying the complicated psychological state and identity crisis of characters in the process of social development;and he is also devoted to exploring the development of South Africa in the post-colonial context.From the perspective of post-colonial criticism,Mad's work fully embodies the post-colonial characteristics of Homi K.Baba's"hybridity"."Hybridity" is one of the most significant keyword in the post-colonial theoretical system of Homi Bhabha.It emphasizes the process of collisions and exchanges between the colonizers and the colonized in politics,economy and culture.It contains terms such as"ambivalence","imitatio","stereotype" and "third space".This theory provides an innovative idea for studying the survival status of the post-colonial countries and exploring their future development.Based on "hybridity" theory,this thesis carries out a research technique of close reading on Mda's two novels:She Plays with the Darkness(1995)and The Heart of Redness(2000)to analyze the representations of hybridity from the perspective of politics,religion and identity so as to bring out the subversiveness and positive significance represented by hybridity.The first chapter mainly introduces Zakes Mda and his works,together with brief theory frame.Chapters 2 to chapter 4 is the main part of the thesis,which discusses the process of historical reconstruction via cultural hybridity in Mda's works,and seek the possibility of social development in South Africa.Chapter 2 takes a view of hybridized political context and takes the colonial relationship as the main object to explore the deconstruction of colonial binary opposition in Mda's works and the new contradictions and new thinking generated in the process;chapter 3 takes a view of hybridized cultural context and takes western religion as well as native faith of South Africa as the entry point to discuss the special significance of cultural mixing;on the basis of chapter 2 and 3,chapter 4 explores the hybridized personal identity in the process of social development,which demonstrates subversion guided in hybridity and reveals the new hope containing in the history and reality.Chapter 5 is the conclusion.It illuminates that,in Mda's novel,cultural hybridity could be the possible outlet of South Africa,the ex-colony with its special regional culture.