TY - JOUR
T1 - Tropical edens
T2 - Colonialism, decolonization, and the tropics
AU - Liang, Iping
PY - 2005/3
Y1 - 2005/3
N2 - This paper concerns the representations of tropical islands by three contemporary novelists: Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (Tar Baby, 1981), Taiwanese woman writer Su Wai-zheng (The Isle of Silence, 1994), and Sri Lanka-born Canadian poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje (Anil's Ghost, 2000). Temporally spanning the last twenty years of the last century, the works under study are geographically spread across the Caribbean, the Indian, and the Pacific Oceans. Being scattered in "tricontinental" oceans, tropical Edens, nevertheless, tell colonial stories that are geographically determined. By reading the three works in tandem, I aim to investigate the dialectics between islands and continents, and between Western colonialism and tropical Edens in the East. I contend that tropical islands like Ceylon, Dominique, and Taiwan are, like the unnamed island in Robinson Crusoe, geographical bases and metonymies of Western colonialism. It is my argument that the spread of Western colonialism is tied with tropical Edenic islands, and that my reading of geographical dialectics will hopefully shed light to the "glocal knowledge" of the "Edenic island discourse.".
AB - This paper concerns the representations of tropical islands by three contemporary novelists: Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (Tar Baby, 1981), Taiwanese woman writer Su Wai-zheng (The Isle of Silence, 1994), and Sri Lanka-born Canadian poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje (Anil's Ghost, 2000). Temporally spanning the last twenty years of the last century, the works under study are geographically spread across the Caribbean, the Indian, and the Pacific Oceans. Being scattered in "tricontinental" oceans, tropical Edens, nevertheless, tell colonial stories that are geographically determined. By reading the three works in tandem, I aim to investigate the dialectics between islands and continents, and between Western colonialism and tropical Edens in the East. I contend that tropical islands like Ceylon, Dominique, and Taiwan are, like the unnamed island in Robinson Crusoe, geographical bases and metonymies of Western colonialism. It is my argument that the spread of Western colonialism is tied with tropical Edenic islands, and that my reading of geographical dialectics will hopefully shed light to the "glocal knowledge" of the "Edenic island discourse.".
KW - Anil's Ghost
KW - Islands in literature
KW - Robisonade
KW - Tar Baby
KW - The Isle of Silence
KW - The postcolonial
KW - The Tropics
KW - Tropical Edens
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=28044441370&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=28044441370&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:28044441370
VL - 35
SP - 327
EP - 352
JO - Tamkang Review
JF - Tamkang Review
SN - 0049-2949
IS - 3-4
ER -