What is Migrant Literature:

focus on politics of location/dislocation

Migrant writing as deconstructing the concept of home

Representing the idea home
1) Home as symbol of stability and safety
2) To be protected by boundaries and a sense of sameness
Contrasting idea of homelessness/dislocation of migrant writers (physical/psychological and private/public
idea of home. Is the concept of home a social construct? What is our personal concept of home?

Significance of migrant literature
1) Consciousness of the Real comes from difference and divergence (the unexpected arouses awareness)
2) Migrant authors offer alternate perspective (eyes from the outside)
Yet it is not always about difference but also about the human insight into situations and events.

Wedding by the Sea
Abdelkader Benali, Moroccan-Dutch author who grew up in a migrant family.
His unusual usage of Dutch can be seen as a re-appropriation of language.

Synopsis
Twenty-year-old Dutch-Moroccan, Lamarat, is given the unenviable task of tracing his uncle (Mosa) and
returning him to his waiting bride, Lamarat's sister, Rebekka. After many detours, the uncle is discovered in
a brothel, from which Lamarat has to extract him.

1) Metaphor of the dollhouse: represents a situation that can be controlled
Taxi as dollhouse: Logic can only be found in a dollhouse.
Illusion of control
What is it like in reality?
2) The character of the father represents old tradition (Moroccan tradition).
He clings on to outdated beliefs

The story is told through the eyes of a Dutch-Moroccan boy who views Moroccan culture with Western
eyes, and views the West as an outsider, Influence of global movements on local culture (and vice
Versa). How does this relate to us living in a globalized and postcolonial society?



Jane Eyre:
Gayatri Spivak
Second Wave feminism is imperialist: Nobody, not Bront or the second wave feminists see Bertha as the
other with a story of her own, instead she is reduced to being a function of Jane Eyres self. There would
have been no great harm in the symbolic interpretation of Bertha Mason if she was just a cast off wife
certified insane, but instead she is a rich Creole from colonised Jamaica who has been carried of to England.
By not contesting this image of Bertha, western feminism is intrinsically imperialist.

The Imperialist message Spivak illustrates the structural nature of the imperialist message in Jane Eyre with
two themes:
1. The reproduction of the human species in the form of starting a family;
2. Making converts in the tropics/civilizing primitive peoples.

Private/Public
The private sphere would then concern Janes struggle for independence and equality and Rochersters
struggle for riches, both at the expense of Bertha Mason.
The public sphere then encompasses both John Rivers missionary work and all the other examples of
colonial discourses which can be found in Jane Eyre. Namely, the notion that Europe is good and everything
outside of it is chaos and insane.

Bherta:
Weather beast or human, one could not at first sight tell, it groveled, seemingly, on all fours [..] the clothed
hyena rose up and stood tall on its hind feet (p321)
McLeod: This repeats a frequent assumption in colonial discourses that those born of parents not from
the same race are degenerate beings, perhaps not fully human, closer to animals (McLeod, 2010, p177).

Contrasts:
a more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers [..] he labours for his
race, he clears their way for improvement
(p477)
Manichean aesthetics refers to a system of representations which conceives of the world in terms of
opposed categories, from which comes a chain of associations. Reality is constructed as a series of
polarities which derive from the opposition posited between light and darkness, and good and evil
(McLeod, 2010, 180).

A postcolonial text?
In the eyes of Susan L. Meyer: Bertha embodies the coloniseds desire for revenge and that Bront
displays a positive attitude towards this rebellious attitude of women, lower class and slaves. She knows,
because being of a lower class or being female is like being a slave.
The slave-master metaphor is continually used throughout the book but especially by Jane in relation to
Rochester to express a power difference that exists between them.

The essence of Susan L. Meyer position:
Although the colonial context in Jane Eyre may not have been challenged by Second Wave
feminism, this does not alter the fact that this context does play a distinct role in the novel itself. There is
an intentional connection between Bronts text and the colonial history of Great Britain with its
accompanying discourse. This connection is characterised by a compassion for the 19th century oppressed,
which is sadly pervaded with racist clichs