Representing the postcolonial Christ: Reading resistance through Homi Bhabha

This thesis argues that postcolonial narratives such as Pamela Mordecai's de Man: a performance poem and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, represent Jesus Christ in unique ways that can best be analyzed and understood through the theories of Homi K. Bhabha. The figure of Jesus Christ in both de Man and The God of Small Things is restricted by his stereotypical representations as a "Saviour" and "The Great God" respectively; yet, Bhabha's theories suggest that stereotypical representation is fundamentally countered by resistance. Thus, this thesis will examine the ways in which Bhabha's theoretical concepts of mimicry and difference function, and are sometimes modified, in representations of the figure of Jesus Christ. Overall, I argue that the figure of Jesus Christ in Mordecai's and Roy's narratives performs complex forms of resistance that force symbolic entry into what Bhabha calls the Third Space which in turn signifies Bhabha's notion of the "Other," a figure who makes clear the impossibility of total colonization. In performing resistance, the figure of Jesus Christ is allowing readers to recognize the pitfalls of stereotypical representation as it appears in colonization. Jesus Christ, like colonial subjects, is not one who can be restricted by stereotypical representation and this thesis in using Bhabha's theories to understand the complications of identifying Christ in postcolonial literature is broadening the understanding of postcolonial theory.