POSTCOLONIAL ECOCRITICISM AND THE COMPARISON OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN AND CARIBBEAN LITERATURES CHRISTOPHER LLOYD DE SHIELD THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREEMalaya OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE of DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA KUALA LUMPUR University 2016 ORIGINAL LITERARY WORK DECLARATION Name of Candidate: Christopher Lloyd De Shield Registration/Matric No: AHA090008 Name of Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: Postcolonial Ecocriticism and the Comparison of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Literatures Field of Study: Postcolonial Ecocriticism I do solemnly and sincerely declare that: 1) I am the sole author/writer of this Work; 2) This Work is original; 3) Any use of any work in which copyright exists was done by way of fair dealing and for permitted purposes and any excerpt or extract from, or reference to or reproduction of any copyright work has been disclosed expressly and sufficiently and the title of the Work and its authorship have been acknowledged in this Work; Malaya 4) I do not have any actual knowledge nor do I ought reasonably to know that the making of this work constitutes an infringement of any copyright work; 5) I hereby assign all and every rights ofin the copyright to this Work to the University of Malaya (―UM‖), who henceforth shall be owner of the copyright in this Work and that any reproduction or use in any form or by any means whatsoever is prohibited without the written consent of UM having been first had and obtained; 6) I am fully aware that if in the course of making this Work I have infringed any copyright whether intentionally or otherwise, I may be subject to legal action or any other action as may be determined by UM. UniversityCandidate’s Signature Date Subscribed and solemnly declared before, Witness’s Signature Date Name: Designation: ABSTRACT This thesis consists of two parts. In part one, I argue that diverse works – hailing from the otherwise disparate archipelagic regions of the Caribbean and Southeast Asia – can be placed into productive relation. To perform this work, I use a methodological lens developed and derived from two very different sources of inspiration. First, I draw upon seminal and contemporary work in the burgeoning discipline of ―postcolonial ecocriticism.‖ The second source of inspiration is classical work in comparative anatomy and developmental vertebrate biology, more specifically, the model of differentiation presented by the concept of ―analogous structures.‖ I spend considerable space in part one of this thesis developing and attuning this specific comparative methodology to Caribbean and Southeast Asian particularities. In Chapter Three, I place the two regions under the rubric of ―analogous structures‖Malaya and demonstrate how the two regions began to be thought of together historically, through the colonial imaginary, and on to the postcolonial imaginary. I build onof this historical and literary scholarship in an effort to justify and ground subsequent comparisons. Part one concludes with a survey of the ―comparative gesture‖ in recent works of postcolonial ecocriticism and a claim, namely: as a theoretical method, postcolonial ecocriticism can recuperate the work of analogy in literary comparison. In part two, three chapters of analysis are presented as case studies for the specific comparative approach developed and advocated in this thesis. In Chapter Four, I considerUniversity Ishak Haji Muhammad‘s Putera Gunung Tahan (1937) alongside Alejo Carpentier‘s El Reino de Este Mundo (1943) so that each might comment on the other‘s magical representation of a specific colonial epistemological struggle. In Chapter Five I juxtapose Lloyd Fernando‘s Scorpion Orchid (1976), Wilson Harris‘s Palace of the Peacock (1960), and Zee Edgell‘s Beka Lamb (1982) to complicate the critical reduction of the authors‘ fictional narratives to the logic of national social prescription. iii This chapter reveals how the textual figure of the female is problematically used in the narratives to resolve issues of socio-racial national integration through analogical recourse to nature and land. Finally, in Chapter Six, I look at two famous works of Caribbean and Southeast Asian provenance respectively, Jean Rhys‘s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and José Rizal‘s Noli Me Tangere (1887) to show how the differences in status held by both work and author in their respective regions is belied by the comparatively similar literary configurations they each display. My conclusion synthesises the findings in a qualified defence of the work of analogy in postcolonial literary comparison against claims of ahistoricisation. I conclude with the claim that ecocritical perspectives in postcolonial literary analysis sustain the politically-useful work of mimetic reading while providing a suitably universal theoretical category that yet protects the worksMalaya against over-contextualisation and reductivist forms of allegorical reading. of University iv ABSTRAK Tesis ini terdiri daripada dua bahagian. Dalam bahagian satu, saya mempertahankan bahawa ilmu sastera dari Caribbean dan Asia Tenggara, walaupun kedua-dua lokasi adalah jauh, boleh membawa faedah apabila digabungkan untuk perbandingan atau pembacaan secara selari. Untuk membuat kajian ini, saya telah menggunakan kaedah metodologi yang datang dari dua sumber inspirasi yang berlainan. Pertama, saya menggunakan karya sastera yang kontemporari dan penting dari disiplin yang semakin berkembang – ―postcolonial ecocriticism‖. Sumber inspirasi yang kedua adalah dari karya klasik dalam biologi, iaitu perbandingan anatomi dan perkembangan vertebrata. Untuk menjadi lebih khusus, model perbandingan dari konsep ―struktur analogi‖ digunakan. Saya meyumbangkan sebahagian daripada juzuk satu untuk memperkembangkan dan memperbaikiMalaya metodologi perbandingan ciri-ciri khas Carribean dan Asia Tenggara. Dalam bab kedua, saya meletakkanof kedua-dua lokasi itu di bawah rubric ―struktur analogi‖ dan menunjukkan bahawa, pada asalnya, kedua-dua lokasi difikirkan bersebelahan melalui imaginasi kolonial dan seterusnya kepada imaginasi pascakolonial. Saya menggunakan kajian sejarah dan sastera sebagai asas untuk dikembangkan, dengan harapan ini akan mengesahkan perbandingan masa hadapan. Bahagian satu menyimpulkan dengan kaji selidik ―perbandingan isyarat‖ dalam karya baru dalam ―postcolonial ecocriticism‖ dan terutamanya, ia boleh digunkan sebagai cara teori.University ―Postcolonial ecocriticism‖ boleh mengembalikan semula kaedah analogi dalam perbandingan sastera. Dalam bahagian dua, tiga bab yang beranalisis dibentangkan sebagai kajian khusus untuk cara perbandingan dan diperjuangkan oleh tesis ini. Bab tiga, buku Putera Gunung Tahan oleh Ishak Haji Muhammad (1937) dan buku El Reino de Esta Mundo v oleh Alejo Carpentier (1943) digunakan supaya kedua-dua buku boleh menonjolkan perwakilan sama sekali sebagai negara yang dijajah dan isu-isu penjajahan asing. Dalam bab empat, saya bandingkan buku Scorpion Orchid oleh Lloyd Fernando (1976), buku Palace of the Peacock oleh Wilson Harris (1960) dan buku Beka Lamb oleh Zee Edgell (1982) untuk memahami kisah fiksyen penulis, bersebelahan pemikiran sosial-nasional. Bab ini menunjukkan imej wanita dalam kisah-kisah tersebut, sebagai wakil yang menyelesaikan masalah dan intergrasi sosio-bangsa negara. Ini dibandingkan seperti alam sekitar kepada bumi. Dalam bab lima, yang terakhir, saya megkaji dua karya Carribean dan Asia Tenggara yang terkenal, iaitu buku berjodol Wide Sargasso Sea oleh Jean Rhys (1966) dan Noli Me Tangere oleh Jose Rizal (1887) untuk menunjukkan perbezaan kedudukan taraf penulis dan karya masing-masing di negaraMalaya asal mereka. Perbezaan dan perbandingan itu juga boleh dikaji dari segi hubungan watak-watak dengan isu-isu negara tersebut. of Kesimpulan saya mengabungkan maklumat dari membentangan analogi dalam perbandingan karya pascakolonial dengan ―ahistoricisation‖. Saya menyimpulkan bahawa perspektif ―ecocritical‖ dalam analisi karya pascakolonial boleh membawa faedah kepada cara membaca dan melindungi karya ini dibaca secara berlebihan atau di kurangkan sebagai pembacaan alegori. University vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was written during a most tumultuous time for me. Thus, I will always find strange the suggestion that doing a PhD means giving up several years of one‘s life for the project; so much of life attended its production and is bound up with it. During the writing of this thesis I moved clear across the planet, married my travel companion, and fathered two children. But I also experienced stresses of the negative sort. I lost several family members during this time-period, the last of my grandparents, and most painfully and much too early, my own father. That my thesis is completed at all I owe to the fact of many fortuitous events, for which I am thankful, and wonderful persons in my life, for whom I count myself blessed. Family in tropical East and West supported me in fundamental ways, faculty and fellow scholars at the University of Malaya lentMalaya me their ears in both official and familiar capacities, family, friends, acquaintances, and countless others supported me in conscious ways or else unbeknownst. To allof of you, terima kasih and Jah bless. Though I have been the privileged recipient of tremendous support, the contents and all shortcomings of this thesis are my own responsibility. I wish to thank my supervisor – my first choice at the University of Malaya – Agnes Yeow who was always