An Interpretation On The Mystic Masseur From Feminist Perspective

Vidiadhar Suraj prasad Naipaul is one of the most important writers of Indo-Caribbean literature.He is a winner of Somerset Maugham Award(1960),Hawthornden Prize(1964),Booker Prize(1971)and Nobel Prize(2001).Naipaul was born into a Hindu Indian family in Trinidad in 1932.His family descended from Indian immigrants.Naipaul is a cosmopolitan writer with multiple cultural backgrounds,which he admits is due to his lack of roots.Most of Naipaul's work exhibit his displacement between the Eastern and Western cultures,which is a popular subject of post-colonial studies.The Mystic Masseur is the first published novel of Naipaul and a representative of his early works.By taking a closer look at the female characters in the novel,we can't help noticing that they only serve as supporting roles with no significance.The treatment of women reveals Naipaul's mixed feeling towards them from a male-centered point of view.However,because of the complexity of Naipaul's cultural background,the character of women in his work are quite different from those of other post-colonial authors.The function of this paper is to analyze and examine the social implications in The Mystic Masseur,and its illustration of the truth of the lives and social status of women of the Indian community in the Caribbean.The thesis consists of five parts.The first part of this paper is an introduction to Naipaul and his main works,as well as a brief review of The Mystic Masseur and related studies.Part two gives a brief introduction on feminism,and the theories of Feminism and Postcolonial Feminism which are used in this study.Part three mainly focuses on the interpretation on the novel from feminism perspectives.It analyzes in detail the female characters in the novel,and the situation of their lives is further studied in the context of Indo-Caribbean patriarchal society in social and literary aspects.The study then goes on to explain the oppression upon women in the novel by applying theories of feminism.Part four discusses the means and result of identity construction of women in the novel and points out its revelation for women in pursuing their economic and psychological independence.The fifth part is the conclusion of thesis.From the perspective of feminism,the author discusses the main reason for failure of women in The Mystic Masseur is their inability to break the shackles of conventional ideology and become independent both economically and psychologically,by which successfully presents the novel functions as a reminder of women's awakening and especially illustrates whose significant effects on promoting the novels meaning generation and theme expression.