Fragmentation And Reconstruction Of Self-identity

Australia is a relatively diverse country with a colonized history.The voice of white and Aboriginal people is still impacting and reverberating on this land.Contemporary Aboriginal writers reproduce the controversial history of contacts and conflicts between European settlers and Aboriginals in their novels,which provides a favorable platform for dialogue between whites and Aboriginals.Interpretation of these novels can not only better understand the racial relations in Australia,but also promote the recognition of how the national identity,especially the Aboriginality has evolved through the history.Therefore,this thesis intends to reread Kim Scott's novel with the assistance of gaze theory to analyze the fragmentation and reconstruction of Aboriginal identity.By rereading Benang: From the Heart from the perspective of gaze theory this thesis explores the process of reconstructing the Aboriginal identity with the multiple functions of gaze.In this novel,the half-caste protagonist Harley is “bred out of color” by his grandfather Ernest as an experimental product of “purifying human race.” and underwent the fragmentation and reconstruction of self-identity.The confusing transition of Harley's psychological process from submission and the following realization to resistance and the final self-identification can be clarified in terms of gaze theory.This thesis firstly traces the origin of the broken and distorted identity of the protagonist and the Aboriginal group in the situation of being gazed and even their resistant gaze;then,it analyzes their consciousness of self-identity with the assistance of recognition gaze,and finally explores their reconstruction of self-identity as a result of self-gaze.Under the prospective of gaze theory,the unequal relationship between people and the unjust situation between races are disclosed,and meanwhile a new balanced mode is suggested,in which personal status is respected and harmonious racial connection can be realized.This thesis will unfold before us a prospective picture of the relationship between Aboriginal and White in which Aboriginal identity is likely to be reconstructed in a relatively harmonious way.