Mimicry And Hybridity:Strategies Of Survival For The Immigrants

Willa Cather is a famous American female writer in the20th century American literature; she plays an important role in American literary history. In the early period of her writing career, she had won a great reputation, but then faded away from the critics. In1970s, she was read and studied by readers and critics over and again. She has caught the attention of the public and critics for describing the beautiful scenery of American west and shaping the images of immigrants who come from other countries and pioneer the wasteland in American west. Her masterpiece, My Antonia, tells a story of a Bohemian family who immigrated to America, fought against the nature and tried to live a life in American west. In the novel, she described the beauty of zoology and nature, and portrayed a great heroine or a great female pioneer.This thesis analyzes the social background and reads the protagonist Antonia from the post-colonial perspective and concludes that her family are marginalized and assimilated by American mainstream culture. In addition, these immigrants take mimicry and hybridity in the post-colonial theory as their own strategies to survive and to fight against the cultural and identity colonization.The thesis contains five chapters:Chapter1introduces the author Willa Cather and her life career, as well as the novel My Antonia.Chapter2reviews the literature on My Antonia at home and abroad; meanwhile, it also outlines the main arguments of post-colonialism with the focus on two important concepts:mimicry and hybridity.Chapter3analyzes My Antonia from the post-colonial perspective. Then it examines the characters’ fighting against the cultural colonization in terms of mimicry and hybridity, especially with main characters Antonia and Lena as the examples.Chapter4is the study of narrative strategy from the perspective of narrator and focalization, as well as the model of discourse in this novel.The thesis concludes in Chapter5. The thesis studies the novel My Antonia from the perspective of post-colonial theory and reveals the present situation of two characters’ hard life in the background of colonial culture in imperial country. It also analyzes the survival strategies of mimicry and hybridity and the resistance against American cultural control over the immigrants.