An Interpretation Of The Green House In The Perspective Of Postcolonialist Criticism

The Green House is one of the most significant novels in Vargas Llosa’s early literary career.It mainly reflects the collision of old and new ideas,the change of social style and the living conditions of the middle and lower classes in Peru around 1920-1960.This thesis stands on the viewpoint of Postcolonial theory,with the support of theories from Edward Waefie Said,Homi K.Bhabha,Stuart Hall and etcetera.Through studying how The Green House portrays the image of common lower class that’s mainly comprised of aboriginal people and how it represents the disadvantaged Aboriginal’s language and culture,to further analyze Vargas Llosa’s challenge to colonial discourse,his deconstruction of the antagonism between "civilization and wildness",and the reconstruction strategy of the Aboriginal culture.The introduction of this thesis sums up the main points,the achievements,the inadequacies,and the blank fields of the works and articles in China and abroad,as well as the theoretical standpoint of post colonialism.The text is divided into three chapters:Chapter one topics the deconstruction of the "barbarian" image,through examining the description of the common image of Aboriginals,their living habits,sexual attitudes and psychological states,to analyze Llosa’s challenge to white centralism and the resolution of the dualistic opposition of "civilization and wildness".The novel reveals to the readers the fact that the real "barbarians" are the colonists who claim to be the "civilized people".Through their invasive actions,not only they over-seized the resources of the rainforest,but also took countless Aboriginal lives.The Aboriginal’s images in the novel are no longer barbarous and backward;they adapt to the environment in the jungle and depend on each other.Their respect to nature,excellent sporting and learning abilities,and their pursuit of beauty disproves colonial discourse.This criticizes the vilification of the power discourse to the disadvantaged nation,which makes the validity of colonial behavior disappear.Chapter two takes the topic of resistance to "language colonization".It points out that in the process of language colonization,"mimicman" and "semi-enlightened" adopt the way to re-learn and use their own national language,or to self-motivate to alienate the sovereign discourse to safeguard the national cultural spirit and resist the colonial discourse system imposed on their thoughts.At the same time,the language of the disadvantaged culture has gradually influenced Spanish in the process of contact,which makes the national cultural spirit imperceptibly enters the dominant discourse system,thus"pollutes the purity" of colonial culture and disturbing the power-relationship between colonial subjects.Chapter three discusses the reconstruction of cultural identity.It examines the reproduction of Aboriginal culture in mixed-culture environment and the reconstruction of Aboriginal cultural identity.In Latin American culture,which embraces all kinds of cultural differences,cultural hybridity itself constitutes a challenge to authoritative discourse.In this mixture of spaces,Aboriginal culture,like Western culture,becomes a type of "presence" rather than an origin that can be returned.On the basis of acknowledgment to the continuity and fragmentation of history,the novel seeks a new way to break the silence and to voice Aboriginal culture by seeking"Aboriginal presence" to express the Latin American cultural identity that’s full of differences and diversity.