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Abstract:Facing with the dominant western culture, the once being colonized people begin to doubt their identity belonging. Suffering a widespread loss of identity belonging, they are eager to set and recreate their personal identity.
Key words: Aboriginal;identity recreation;cultural hybridity
1.Introduction
The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a bush novel written in 1972 by Thomas Keneally. The heroine, Jimmie, a half-caste aborigine of black mother and white father, works hard to recreate his identity so that his off springs would lead a life like the white. However, unable to bear the humiliation of the White any more, Jimmie recklessly revenged those who exploited him and finally was executed.
2.Theory Application
According to Homi Bhabha, the Cultural Hybridity means the blending of several cultures, especially the cultural blending of the colony and the colonial power. Instead of seeing colonialism as something locked in the past, it shows how the powerful culture of the colonial power infiltrates into the indigenous culture, how the histories and cultures constantly intrude on the present, demanding that we transform our understanding of cross-cultural relations.
3.The Identity Recreation In Cultural Hybridity
3.1 The identity loss of Aboriginal root
With the intrusion of Western culture, the Australia is intrinsically part of Europe, both culturally and ideologically. Based on the dominance of the western cultures, Jimmie surrendered himself to the white ideology. He belittled his initiation teeth, which means departure and betrayal of his indigenous culture. As a “hybrid”, Jimmie inherits a share in a white contempt for Aboriginal culture.
3.2 The identity inclination of white life
Under the white cultural influences, “The sweet pastures and vineyards resounded in Jimmie Blacksmith’s.......Tullam and Mungara”, Jimmie began to harbor white ambitions of “home, hearth, wife, land”.
In the tribal culture, Jimmie should marry in the tribal pattern. While Jimmie believed that “if you could ever find a nice girl off a farm to marry......scarcely black at all”. Jimmie’s dream of having a white wife was realized, however, the wife did not give birth to an offspring as Jimmie deemed but a completely white-stock baby. Jimmie’s failure of marriage is a comic tragedy, meaning the failure of his white ambitions.
3.3 The self-created outcast of identity
Although Jimmie bears the characteristics of diligence and intelligence, his merits did not steer his life to a better standard, on the contrary, the more he devoted himself to his job, the more he endured the humiliation and abuse from his white employers. When Jimmie’s uncle and brother come to his dwelling for the sake of his initial teeth, Mr. Newby refused to provide them the life necessities; Jimmie completely lost his ration and surrendered himself to the killing rampage. Jimmie and his brother killed the family of Mr. Newby by the ax used to build the fence for them. A person, dangling between the white and black cultures, will inevitably lose himself in his identity recreation. Having abandoned his Aboriginal root and been discarded from the white community, Jimmie’s identity recreation is on the way to extermination; Jimmie can neither retain a tribal identity nor achieve a white one. The cultural hybridity’s affecting Jimmie’s expectation of identity recreation is inevitable and unavoidable, but if a person lost his root culture, he is doomed from the start.
4.Conclusion
Jimmie fails to transform himself to Mr. Smith, partly because he bears his tribal culture, partly because he is unable to incorporate the white ideology inside He is a failure of cultural hybridity.
References
[1] Bhabha, Homi K. 1994, The Location of Culture, Routledge: London.
[2] Keneally, Thomas. 1972, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Penguin Books: Ringwood.
[3] 黄源深. 澳大利亚文学史. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 1997.
作者简介:邱伟,1987年11月13,女,上海对外贸易学院国际商务英语学院,英语语言文学,研究生(研二)
Key words: Aboriginal;identity recreation;cultural hybridity
1.Introduction
The chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a bush novel written in 1972 by Thomas Keneally. The heroine, Jimmie, a half-caste aborigine of black mother and white father, works hard to recreate his identity so that his off springs would lead a life like the white. However, unable to bear the humiliation of the White any more, Jimmie recklessly revenged those who exploited him and finally was executed.
2.Theory Application
According to Homi Bhabha, the Cultural Hybridity means the blending of several cultures, especially the cultural blending of the colony and the colonial power. Instead of seeing colonialism as something locked in the past, it shows how the powerful culture of the colonial power infiltrates into the indigenous culture, how the histories and cultures constantly intrude on the present, demanding that we transform our understanding of cross-cultural relations.
3.The Identity Recreation In Cultural Hybridity
3.1 The identity loss of Aboriginal root
With the intrusion of Western culture, the Australia is intrinsically part of Europe, both culturally and ideologically. Based on the dominance of the western cultures, Jimmie surrendered himself to the white ideology. He belittled his initiation teeth, which means departure and betrayal of his indigenous culture. As a “hybrid”, Jimmie inherits a share in a white contempt for Aboriginal culture.
3.2 The identity inclination of white life
Under the white cultural influences, “The sweet pastures and vineyards resounded in Jimmie Blacksmith’s.......Tullam and Mungara”, Jimmie began to harbor white ambitions of “home, hearth, wife, land”.
In the tribal culture, Jimmie should marry in the tribal pattern. While Jimmie believed that “if you could ever find a nice girl off a farm to marry......scarcely black at all”. Jimmie’s dream of having a white wife was realized, however, the wife did not give birth to an offspring as Jimmie deemed but a completely white-stock baby. Jimmie’s failure of marriage is a comic tragedy, meaning the failure of his white ambitions.
3.3 The self-created outcast of identity
Although Jimmie bears the characteristics of diligence and intelligence, his merits did not steer his life to a better standard, on the contrary, the more he devoted himself to his job, the more he endured the humiliation and abuse from his white employers. When Jimmie’s uncle and brother come to his dwelling for the sake of his initial teeth, Mr. Newby refused to provide them the life necessities; Jimmie completely lost his ration and surrendered himself to the killing rampage. Jimmie and his brother killed the family of Mr. Newby by the ax used to build the fence for them. A person, dangling between the white and black cultures, will inevitably lose himself in his identity recreation. Having abandoned his Aboriginal root and been discarded from the white community, Jimmie’s identity recreation is on the way to extermination; Jimmie can neither retain a tribal identity nor achieve a white one. The cultural hybridity’s affecting Jimmie’s expectation of identity recreation is inevitable and unavoidable, but if a person lost his root culture, he is doomed from the start.
4.Conclusion
Jimmie fails to transform himself to Mr. Smith, partly because he bears his tribal culture, partly because he is unable to incorporate the white ideology inside He is a failure of cultural hybridity.
References
[1] Bhabha, Homi K. 1994, The Location of Culture, Routledge: London.
[2] Keneally, Thomas. 1972, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Penguin Books: Ringwood.
[3] 黄源深. 澳大利亚文学史. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 1997.
作者简介:邱伟,1987年11月13,女,上海对外贸易学院国际商务英语学院,英语语言文学,研究生(研二)