Negotiating Identities

Contemporary Malaysian fiction in English is preoccupied with the question of identity. Living in a postcolonial nation, in which their migrant status remains problematic regardless of how many generations ago their ancestors first settled on the land, they write from their marginal positions to articulate their constructions of nation, selfhood and community. Further complicating the issue of identity is the marginalisation of their language of choice, which since1967onwards has been consigned to secondary status, with the ensuing reduction of both writers and readers.Based on the works of four Malaysian novelists, this dissertation applies postcolonial theory to explore the negotiation of identity predicated upon nationality, locality, ethnicity, gender and language. The Malaysian nation in its infancy is beset with two diametrically opposed views of how its new national identity should evolve-either by reclaiming a purely pre-colonial past, or through hybridisation with colonial and migrant influences. This debate is further destabilised by issues of race, gender and language. Set mostly in Malaysia (London, New York, Long Beach and Singapore are other locations), locality is also a major determinant of how identity negotiation proceeds. The dissertation is organised into six chapters.Chapter1begins with a brief introduction to the history of Malaysia and its literature in English, and the role various languages have played there. After a discussion of the complexity of forging a common identity in the nation, it then introduces the four novelists-Lloyd Fernando, Lee Kok Liang, K.S. Maniam and Shirley Geok-lin Lim-under investigation. Proposing the postcolonial concept of negotiating identities from interstitial spaces as its theoretical framework, it ends with an introduction to the structural layout of the dissertation.Chapter2examines the works of Lloyd Fernando, who makes it a point to be all-inclusive in his fiction, incorporating as main characters all the four major racial groups in Malaysia. He sets his characters-who are marginalised either by their migrant status or their liberal outlook-on a quest for national unity while dealing with issues of religious, racial and cultural diversity. His vision of a multicultural identity amidst an increasingly nationalistic Malaysia is negotiated through the pains and misery of those invested in the future of the nation, but the glimpses he offers of this new society suggests that this is an ideal that is worth the struggle.Chapter3offers an investigation of the works of Lee Kok Liang who begins his writing career by placing his protagonist in the metropolitan centre of London. His subsequent works are generally located in Malaya/Malaysia. Lee presents deeply-flawed yet sympathetic characters who have to navigate unfamiliar locations to discover a sense of self and belonging. The alienation and isolation they experience result in the loss of their ability to communicate effectively while at the same time exposing their foreignness and weaknesses. The lack of a resolution to their predicament implies that this is a situation that will require constant and continuous negotiation.Chapter4looks at the first two novels by K.S. Maniam who writes from his Hindu Tamil background. Isolated within their community-mainly as a result of the British divide-and-rule policy-they cling on to their caste system and are resistant to any social change. Coming into contact with colonial epistemology and Malaysian diversity forces them to re-think their identity. These works appear to present a progression, depicting first settlers who cling to their ancestral past, and later generations who begin to re-examine the interaction of that past with colonial influences, to a further hybridisation with local and other diverse migrant cultures.Chapter5explores the first two novels of Shirley Geok-lin Lim. She examines and attempts to dismantle concepts of racial and national purity and patriarchal hierarchy. Both these concepts are alive and well in Malaysia and America. The representations of Malaysian females of Chinese descent in Lim’s works challenge dominant discourses in a reworking of racial and gendered identity. Cultural and linguistic identity tempered through the appropriation of the colonial culture and language further informs these works.The last chapter presents a brief summary of the study. It concludes that, from what we have seen in the works of the four writers studied in the dissertation, the diversity of the Malaysian society is such that hybridisation of identity is inevitable, and furthermore, given the continuous interaction of myriad factors, negotiation of this hybrid identity is an ongoing process. It also considers some of its limitations and suggests several possible areas for future research in this area.