Reflections On History

This thesis is an analysis of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss(2006) from the perspective of New Historicism. The Inheritance of Loss, the second novel of the distinguished Indian author Kiran Desai, has won a number of awards since its publication in 2006, including the Man Booker Prize for that year, the 2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007.Up to now, many scholars at home and abroad have discussed the novel from the viewpoints of Post-Colonialism, Narratology, Space Theory, Cultural Studies, etc.. Yet few scholars study the author’s reflections on history from the perspective of New Historicism. In fact, literary texts not only document the social and historical situation but also reconstruct the sociohistorical situation. They are in the relation of mutual corroboration and mutual elucidation. The Inheritance of Loss concentrates on the history of India for a century and replaces the History with histories, so that it truly reflects the characteristics of New Historicism. Therefore, this thesis will make an analysis of The Inheritance of Loss from the New Historicist perspective and expound the interrelationship between the text and history. Moreover, it will explore Kiran Desai’s historical consciousness. Kiran Desai acclaims that the past should not impede the future and we need to view history with a broad mind. She stresses humanist care and promotes social harmonious development in India.This study mainly consists of three chapters apart from the introduction and the conclusion. Chapter two analyzes the social text of The Inheritance of Loss, in which the History plays an important role in featuring the text, concerning India’s post-colonialist issues, the Indian national separatist movement of West Bengal in the 1980s and the Indian emigration problems in the context of globalization. Chapter three explores how the History is compressed in The Inheritance of Loss, that is to say how the History is replaced by histories. Chapter four elaborates on the historical consciousness of Kiran Desai, covering her critical attitude toward History and her desire for abandoning the narrow nationalism and promoting social harmonious development of India.