Two Tunes:Disillusion And Reconstruction Of Anna Morgan's Cultural Identity In Voyage In The Dark

Jean Rhys is an earlier writer that explores the roots of Caribbean culture.Her novel Voyage in the Dark makes the Caribbean Creole girl Anna's own voice heard in the “two tunes” of post-colonial diaspora narrative and Rhys constructs the cultural identity of the Caribbean diaspora through first-person narrative in the novel.Rhys' s first title for Voyage in the Dark is Two Tunes,which reflects the importance of new world and old world in Anna's exploration of her own right cultural identity.Although neither Rhys nor Anna can ever fit the two tunes together,Rhys still gives a crucial answer to the dilemma of Anna's cultural identity in this novel.And it reveals the right way of Caribbean white Creole people to treat their own identity situation in the post-colonial era.As a white Creole,Anna indeed has both whiteness and blackness,which always makes her in a very embarrassed situation.After she drifts into London,her cultural identity crisis becomes more acute.Anna's Caribbean Creole cultural identity has gone through three different stages: loss of Caribbean cultural identity,attempt to gain the right cultural identity and reconstruction of Caribbean Creole cultural identity.She always keeps trying to obtain a right cultural identity between two cultures.Although this sort of cultural communication fails in the end,Anna's courage to try is still worthy of people's affirmation.After a series of blows,Anna recalls the strong fighting spirit of the indigenous people of Caribbean,and this is the spiritual support for her to continue fighting.Unfortunately,Anna is caught in illusion due to suffering from loss of blood after undergoing an abortion.And in hallucinations,Anna sees that she joins a Caribbean carnival parade which she is forbidden to join when she is a little child.Anna breaks out a strong carnival spirit near death,which will break the boundaries of race,gender,and class and finallyexpress her infinite desire for life freely.This Caribbean carnival spirit is also the sanctification of the longing for the unity and harmonious coexistence of all the Caribbean people from various ethnic groups and classes.The Caribbean carnival is a symbol of Anna's breaking through the liminal phase,gradually arriving at a multicultural phase and finally breaking the darkness before dawn.According to voodoo,death is the path to rebirth,so Anna's physical death is also a sign of her spiritual rebirth,which means that her soul eventually returns to the Caribbean homeland and thus Anna's West-Indian Creole's multicultural identity will be reconstructed in the end.This thesis intends to explore the dynamic process of the heroine Anna's cultural identity in Rhys' s novel Voyage in the Dark and then reveal the significance of the reconstruction of Anna's Caribbean Creole cultural identity.It will provide a keen insight into the continuous generation of Caribbean Creole people's cultural identity in postcolonial social context.That is to remove the secular prejudice and embrace multiculturalism,and then the various problems caused by binary opposition will be dispelled to a certain extent.Thus it can be said that a new healthy social order and a highly inclusive Caribbean Creole cultural identity will be formed in the hearts of all the Caribbean people.