The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique) from the Perspective of Post Colonialism

The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique) from the Perspective of Post Colonialism

Baoping Xu

Abstract   The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique) is an autobiographical novel written by French writer Marguerite Duras in her early days. The book tells the story of an ordinary white family in 20th-century French colonial India: a mother and two children (Susan and Joseph) settled in China, and because they did not bribe the colonial authorities, they eventually bought a farmland eroded by ocean tides every year. Later, the dykes they had worked so hard to build twice were destroyed by the tides, the land was unfortunately engulfed by pacific water, and the mother finally died of depression and physical and mental aging. This article mainly analyzes the hybrid expression of the main characters in the book from the perspective of postcolonialism, and discusses the necessity and inadequacy of the construction of cultural identity in the “third space” by discussing the racial antagonism and discrimination between the protagonist's family and the colonized people.

Keywords   The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique)； Hybridity； Racial Antagonism； The Construction of Cultural Identity

后殖民主义视角下的《抵挡太平洋的堤坝》

徐宝萍

摘要：《抵挡太平洋的堤坝》是法国作家玛格丽特•杜拉斯早期创作的一部带有自传性质的长篇小说。该书讲述的是在20世纪法属殖民地印度土地上的一个底层普通白人家庭的故事：母亲带着两个孩子(苏珊与约瑟夫)在印度定居，因为没有贿赂殖民当局而买到了年年被海潮侵蚀的耕种土地。后来，他们费劲辛劳两次修筑的堤坝被潮汐摧毁，土地也随之被海水吞没，母亲最终在破产及身心衰老中郁郁而亡。本文主要从后殖民主义视角分析该书主要人物的混杂性体现，通过进一步论述主人公一家与被殖民人民存在的种族对立与歧视现象，探讨“第三空间”中实现身份构建的必要性及局限性。

关键词：《抵挡太平洋的堤坝》；混杂性；种族对立；身份建构