Deconstruction Of Imperial Myth:Reading William Golding’s Sea Trilogy As Historiographic Metafiction

William Golding was an important English writer in the mid to late 20 th century.He wrote 12 novels in his lifetime.To the Ends of the Earth(1991)is his later masterpiece,also known as the sea trilogy,and is composed of Rites of Passage(1980),Close Quarters(1987)and Fire Down Below(1989).Rites of Passage won the Booker Prize in 1980.The sea trilogy is a travel journal by Edmund Talbot.It tells the story of a group of British immigrants sailing from southern England to Australia in the early 19 th century,and exposes the hypocrisy of colonialism and the barbarity of colonialists.Scholars at home and abroad have studied the sea trilogy with different methods,such as narratological study,interdisciplinary research,cultural criticism and comparative research.However,by far most of them,regarding the writer as a “fabulist”,focus on the theme of evil human nature embodied in the works.Few have noticed the sea trilogy’s role in questioning colonial discourse and deconstructing imperial myth.This thesis,based on Linda Hutcheon’s theory of historiographic metafiction,argues that the sea trilogy is historiographic metafiction,and it casts doubt over the authenticity of the official history of imperial colonialism,exposes the nature of colonialism,and deconstructs the British imperial myth.The thesis consists of six chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces Golding as well as his sea trilogy.It then reviews the previous studies on the sea trilogy,and explains the topic,research approach and structure of the thesis.Chapters Two to Five are the body of the thesis.Based on Hutcheon’s theory,Chapter Two analyzes the features of the sea trilogy as historiographic metafiction.The sea trilogy includes abundant references to historical events and other texts,and unreliable multiple narrative structure.The employment of such writing methods typically found in historiographic metafiction shows the capacity and value of the trilogy in history writing on one hand,and on the other emphasizes its role in making the reader reconsider the relationship between history and fiction and become aware that history,like fiction,is also a text that is unavoidably influenced by its author’s ideology,thus raising doubt over the truthfulness of British colonial history written under the influence of imperial discourse.The argument that the trilogy is historiographic metafiction serves as the basis for the arguments in the following chapters.Chapters Three to Five discuss the sea trilogy’s deconstruction of imperial myth from three aspects.First,the trilogy challenges the imperial idea of white supremacy.In imperial discourse,the white see themselves as the civilized and rational “subject” while the colored are reduced to the barbaric and ignorant “other”.However,the western world in the trilogy is full of violence and tyranny.After the ship passes the equator,the white people on board gradually show their barbaric and irrational side,which directly overturns the rational and civilized image of the white people in the imperial discourse.Chapter Four analyzes the trilogy’s subversion of the myth of imperial heroes.In the imperial discourse,the overseas explorers are mostly brave,loyal and pious,showing the legacy of medieval chivalry,and are depicted as imperial heroes.However,the adventurers in the trilogy are generally ignorant,fond of bullying and faithless.Chapter Five reveals how the trilogy topples the legends of overseas expansion.In the imperial discourse,Britain has a powerful navy which has provided strong motivation and guarantee for its imperial expansion;and overseas explorers can easily acquire great wealth in the colonies and realize their ambitions.However,the trilogy reveals another side of overseas expansion.Overseas explorers are often faced with dangers and threats during their journey,and some adventurers end up in failures in the colonies.Moreover,from Talbot’s dialogues with other passengers,it is not difficult to find the hypocrisy of colonial expansion—the colonists exploit the coloured races relentlessly but they claim their purpose is to civilize the eastern world.The last chapter is Conclusion,which summarizes the central arguments of the thesis and the previous discussions,and restates that Golding’s sea trilogy challenges the authority of imperial discourse,reveals the nature of imperial colonialism and demystifies the imperial myth.