Triumphant “in-between”:A Study On The Identification Of The Other Country

This thesis takes a postcolonial perspective to The Other Country(1990)of the first female Poet Laureate in the British history,Carol Ann Duffy,in an attempt to explore the identification of the poet based on a textual analysis.The Other Country is typical within Duffy's poem collections,as a presentation of identity confusion.Selecting the whole poetry as its analysis subject allows the thesis to develop its argument more convincingly due to the possibility of deploying more details for further elaboration.The theoretical framework applied to the analysis is postcolonialism one of whose representative figures is Homi K.Bhabha.Under the principle concepts of “in-between”,“beyond”,“hybridity” and “minority”,Bhabha tries to clean up the leftover problems of colonization and pays close attention to the identity problem of minorities.The selection of the theoretical perspective may be further justified within the context of Duffy's personal experience.She migrated from Scotland to England with her family at a young age and was brought up in England.And her education and work experience in England turned out to be a process of displacement.In this sense,The Other Country also functions as a miniature of identity confusion facing the poet.In the light of Bhabha's theory,the thesis' main preoccupation is with what identity dilemma that the poet is faced with and how she solves the problem.The thesis comes to a conclusion that in The Other Country,the revelation of the poet's identity dilemma is realized principally through poems including “Originally”,“Translating the English” and “Sit at Peace”.In “Originally”,the treatment of the migrant family in the new place reflects the unequal relationship between Scotland and England,indicating the binary opposition between the two nations,and the latter two poems further describe the imbalance between marginalized Scotland and dominant England within the British society.What is stressed in the collection of poems is that Duffy,as a mainstream poet with a Scottish background,fails to integrate into the mainstream society and distances from Scotland and thus becomes an outsider of both Scotland and England when facing the binary opposition.However,the poet also discovers how to solve the identity problem.In “Originally”,“Translating the English”,“River” and “The Way My Mother Speaks”,Duffy makes use of strategies like plot development,fragmented narration and language fuzziness to deconstruct the dominant position of England and makes an attempt to move Scotland out of the embarrassing marginalization,through her elimination of the binary opposition between the two member nations of Britain.However,the elimination,in turn,brings uncertainties to an already complicated situation.Even if the binary opposition is successfully removed,the future development of the relationship between Scotland and England remains a problem,and thus the identity dilemma of the poet still exists.The solution emerges from the concluding poem “In Your Mind” where Duffy finally decides to dwell in an in-between space to end her identity struggle and confirms “in-between approach” as a solution for the future between Scotland and England.And the elimination of the uncertainties becomes a reality when a place of certainty is available to be her spiritual home.Instead of relying on the external environment and conditions such as pre-fixed ethnic or cultural traits,the poet chooses to dwell in an imaginary country or a spiritual home.And the place of certainty that comes to Duffy is an in-between space where she would let go of the “black-and-white” choice of either England or Scotland and live as merely a poet.A poet in the “in-between” and “beyond” space tries to seek a way out,namely,“in-between approach”,that can satisfy both marginalized Scotland and the mainstream British society at the same time.Thus,after the elimination of the binary opposition between Scotland and England,Duffy tries to create a space where the two sides can have an equal negotiation with each other,which is also an “in-between” space,in the same sense as the one she dwells in.The whole study hopes to shed light on the studies on a poet of major significance and her poem collections by presenting a portrait of the poet in terms of identification.Moreover,it attempts to attract more attention to the identification issue,in particular,in the rapid progress of globalization and frequent movement of population.