Postcolonial Myth in Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet

• Authors: Roxana Elena Doncu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Postcolonial writers like Salman Rushdie often write back to the “empire” by appropriating myth and allegory. In The Ground beneath Her Feet, Rushdie rewrites the mythological story of Orpheus and Eurydice, using katabasis (the trope of the descent into Hell) to comment both on the situation of the postcolonial writer from a personal perspective and to attempt a redefinition of postcolonial migrant identity-formation. Hell has a symbolic function, pointing both to the external context of globalization and migration (which results in the characters’ disorientation) and to an interior space which can be interpreted either as a source of unrepressed energies and creativity (in a Romantic vein) or as the space of the abject (in the manner of Julia Kristeva). The article sets out to investigate the complex ways in which the Orphic myth and katabasis are employed to shed light on the psychology of the creative artist and on the reconfiguration of identity that becomes the task of the postcolonial migrant subject. The journey into the underworld functions simultaneously as an allegory of artistic creation and identity reconstruction.

Keywords

EN

postcolonial myth; katabasis; metanoia; Romantic genius; hybridity; the abject; rock music; transgression

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: American, British and Canadian Studies Journal
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 79-95

Dates

published

2014-01-01

online

2014-02-18

Contributors

author

Roxana Elena Doncu

• University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”

References

• Baumann, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000.
• Bhabha, Homi. “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences.” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft et al. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. - - - . The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
• Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. August 2, 2013. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/blake/william/marriage/. Sept. 3, 2013.[WoS]
• Derrida, Jaques. “Des Tours de Babel.” Difference in Translation. Ithaca and London: Cornell U.P., 1985, 165-207.
• Jung, Carl Gustav. “Civilization in Transition.” Collected Works 10. Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1954, 131-149. - - -. Symbols of Transformation: An Analysis of a Prelude to a Case of Schizophrenia. Collected Works 5. Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1956.
• Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia U.P., 1982.
• Levi-Strauss, Claude. “The structural study of myth.” Structural Anthropology.
• Vol.1. New York: Basic, 1963, 206-231.
• McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutemberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man.
• Toronto: U. of Toronto P., 1962.
• Nayar, Pramod K. Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction. New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2008.
• Rushdie, Salman. The Ground beneath Her Feet. London: Vintage, 2000. - - -. “Rock Music: A Sleeve Note.” Step across This Line. Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002. New York: The Modern Library, 2003, 92-93. - - -. “The Location of Brazil.” Imaginary Homelands. Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. New York: Penguin Books, 1992, 118-127.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/abcsj-2013-0021