Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro
Based on the issue of colonial agency and aiming at a revision of Homi Bhabha’s notion of third space, this essay considers two novels roughly based on a dystopian pattern and actually showing two similar interpretations of the Other. The first one, Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963), was written as a p...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Milano University Press
2012-05-01
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| Series: | Altre Modernità |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/2166 |
| _version_ | 1797763275852611584 |
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| author | Nicoletta Vallorani |
| author_facet | Nicoletta Vallorani |
| author_sort | Nicoletta Vallorani |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Based on the issue of colonial agency and aiming at a revision of Homi Bhabha’s notion of third space, this essay considers two novels roughly based on a dystopian pattern and actually showing two similar interpretations of the Other. The first one, Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963), was written as a political and fictional response to the US bombing of Hiroshima and is set in the Republic of San Lorenzo, a Carribbean island whose history has developed through the struggle between a naïf and ruthless dictator, ‘Papa’ Monzano, and a religious leader, Bokonon, who’s made an outlaw though the religion he predicates is professed by almost everyone. The second, Will Self’s The Butt (2008), develops the story of a tourist, Tom Brodzinki, in a tropical island conceived as something of a cross between Australia and Iraq. In both cases, the main focus is the relationship between the Westerner – ex-colonizer and naïf traveller – and the native, that appears to be more ambiguous than it seemed at first sight. The Imperial legacy produces a definite notion of exotic Paradise that is finally reversed in the colonizer’s Hell. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T19:40:15Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4e0acc8fcb9d4f538346bf7455ee8c25 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2035-7680 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T19:40:15Z |
| publishDate | 2012-05-01 |
| publisher | Milano University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Altre Modernità |
| spelling | doaj.art-4e0acc8fcb9d4f538346bf7455ee8c252023-08-02T03:54:00ZengMilano University PressAltre Modernità2035-76802012-05-010717919410.13130/2035-7680/21661967Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altroNicoletta Vallorani0Università degli Studi di MilanoBased on the issue of colonial agency and aiming at a revision of Homi Bhabha’s notion of third space, this essay considers two novels roughly based on a dystopian pattern and actually showing two similar interpretations of the Other. The first one, Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963), was written as a political and fictional response to the US bombing of Hiroshima and is set in the Republic of San Lorenzo, a Carribbean island whose history has developed through the struggle between a naïf and ruthless dictator, ‘Papa’ Monzano, and a religious leader, Bokonon, who’s made an outlaw though the religion he predicates is professed by almost everyone. The second, Will Self’s The Butt (2008), develops the story of a tourist, Tom Brodzinki, in a tropical island conceived as something of a cross between Australia and Iraq. In both cases, the main focus is the relationship between the Westerner – ex-colonizer and naïf traveller – and the native, that appears to be more ambiguous than it seemed at first sight. The Imperial legacy produces a definite notion of exotic Paradise that is finally reversed in the colonizer’s Hell.https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/2166Colonial agencyThird spaceHomi BhabhaEpistemic violenceKurt Vonnegut JrWill Self |
| spellingShingle | Nicoletta Vallorani Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro Altre Modernità Colonial agency Third space Homi Bhabha Epistemic violence Kurt Vonnegut Jr Will Self |
| title | Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro |
| title_full | Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro |
| title_fullStr | Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro |
| title_full_unstemmed | Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro |
| title_short | Para-paradisi. “Colonial agency”, paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell’altro |
| title_sort | para paradisi colonial agency paradisi postcoloniali e invenzione dell altro |
| topic | Colonial agency Third space Homi Bhabha Epistemic violence Kurt Vonnegut Jr Will Self |
| url | https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/2166 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nicolettavallorani paraparadisicolonialagencyparadisipostcolonialieinvenzionedellaltro |