| This project is a postcolonial discourse analysis of the character of Delilah in Judges 16:4-22. Delilah is one of the characters in the story of Samson in the book of Judges, whose story consists of only fourteen verses. However, her name has entered communal consciousness on a variety of levels. She has been portrayed in film, on television, in music and in the arts. Characteristically, she parallels cultural stereotypes of the `femme fatale," according to patriarchal society. As such, she portrays the kind of dangerous woman that one should avoid. More recently, Delilah and her various portrayals, which are embedded in multi-layered discourses, reveal how she is a postcolonial subject. In order to explore the layers of discourse that have been constructed in and around the character of Delilah in the text and its interpretation, this work enlists a postcolonial discourse analysis that brings together postcolonial criticism and discourse analysis. Drawing from the works of three theorists, Edward Said, Michel Foucault and Mikhail Bakhtin, this project unveils Delilah emerging as an ambiguous colonial subject, who functions as both colonized and colonizer simultaneously. This study not only reflects the complexity and ambiguity of the character of Delilah, but also expresses the complexity of the entire colonial process and how the colonized may participate unconsciously in the colonial process. |
