单 位 代 码 10475 学号 104753100664 分类号 I0 硕 士 学 位 论 文硕 士 学 位 论 文 The Diaspora in Kiran Desais The Inheritance of Loss 论基兰德赛小说失落的传承中的飞散现象论基兰德赛小说失落的传承中的飞散现象 学 科 、 专 业 ： 英语语言文学 研 究 方 向 ： 英美文学 申请学位类别 ： 文学硕士 申请人 ： 邢伟明 指 导 教 师 ： 李巧慧 副教授 二一三 年 五 月 The Diaspora in Kiran Desais The Inheritance of Loss 论基兰德赛小说失落的传承中的飞散现象论基兰德赛小说失落的传承中的飞散现象 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Henan University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Xing Weiming Supervisor: Associate Prof. Li Qiaohui May, 2013 Acknowledgements This thesis is accomplished under the inspiration and instruction of my respected supervisor, Professor Li Qiaohui. I am very grateful to her for the illuminating directions, valuable suggestions and constant encouragement in the course of writing the paper. She has made a lot of corrections and suggestions as to the language and improved some ideas in my paper. Without her supervising, this paper would never have come to the present form. I also express my gratitude to all my teachers who teach me in Henan University. They help me a lot in the study of foreign literature during the three years. They are Pro. Jiao Xiaoting, Pro. Wang Baotong, Pro. Xue Yufeng and so on. Their lectures have broadened my knowledge and horizon. I have benefited a lot from their earnest teaching and enlightening, which are great help for my study. And also I am very grateful to my classmates, especially my roommates Pei Shasha and Lu Zhenzhen. They give me a lot of help in my study and life. They are best friends in my life. At last, my gratitude goes to those who help me and to all the friends who have offered me much help and support in writing this paper. I Abstract The Indian American woman writer, Kiran Desai (1971- ), won Man Booker Prize 2006 for her second novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006). She sets India as the novels backdrop and writes the novel based on her experiences which she gained when she travelled between East and West. She wrote the novel with the English language rather than the Indian English language. She expresses the new voice of modern Indian fiction in her novels and depicts something of absolutely her own. A famous Indian English writer Salman Rushdie ever said that she is a terrific writer in expounding the sufferings of exiles. She has a place in the great contemporary Indian authors who study life and society in India and elsewhere after the publication of her second novel. The novel The Inheritance of Loss took her eight years to finish. It is a globalized novel of the globalized world. She expresses the humane breadth and political shrewdness in the novel. This paper is planned to analyze the novel The Inheritance of Loss from the perspective of diaspora. Diaspora firstly describes the Jewish experience, and then portrays many people who have dispersal or scattering experience. As we are in the course of globalization, the circulation of immigrants is becoming very frequent. Diaspora, as a cultural phenomenon, usually expresses the situations of those dispersal people. It describes the situations of the immigrants and circumstances of people who disperse from their original “homelands” to foreign countries. When people stay in one or two more societies, the native culture and the host culture are in conflict. Their identities are in crisis in the host society. Which identities diasporas should keep concerns the life of scattering people. They cant stick to the original identity, and insist on the identity of the host society. Because they, as “others” in host countries, cant be accepted by the host authority. Because identities are fluid and hybrid, they II should have hybridity identities-a cultural mixture. This paper consists of three chapters besides introduction and conclusion. The introduction has three parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to the Indian American woman writer Kiran Desai and her novel The Inheritance of Loss. The second part gives a general introduction to the literary review of the writer and the novel at home and abroad. The last part provides the theoretical framework of the thesis. Chapter One is the connotation of the diaspora. It includes two parts-the definition of diaspora and the homeland for diasporic people. We can know of the theory of diaspora and define which kind of diaspora characters in the novel belong to through the definition of diaspora. The diasporas cannot live a comfortable life in foreign countries and experience many travails in the host country. Therefore, there is a desiring for homing in their hearts. The home can be their original or imaginary homeland. The homeland is a peaceful land in their inner hearts and entails their belongings. They can have a rest place and escape from the outside world there. Chapter Two describes the formation of Indian Diasporas. This chapter is divided into two parts-the diasporic formation of the judge and Sai. Though th