Culture Kite Runner

Misrepresentation of Culture in Meatless Days and Kite Runner
By
Muhammad Akram Saqib
2013-gcuf-17123

Thesis proposal submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTERS OF PHILOSOPHY
IN
ENGLISH LITERATURE

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
GC UNIVERSITY, FAISALABAD.
SAHIWAL CAMPUS

March, 2015

Abstract
Study of the Kite Runner and Meatless days is an endeavour to present the misrepresentation of native cultures by Sara Suleri and Khalid Hosseini. Cultural study of literature is one of the important issues which has got new dimensions with the entrance of the postcolonial
and comparative theories of literature. The Asian English fiction writers are always blamed for being biased in favour of the West. My work intends to locate the gap which creates this dubiety and suspicion. The Meatless days of Sara Suleri and Kite Runner of Khalid Hosseini has been selected to explore them from this cultural comparative angle.

Misrepresentation of Culture in Meatless Days and Kite Runner
Introduction
The end of physical or geological colonialism does not eliminate the intellectual colonialism. Literary comprador elite has been produced and utilized by the West. This literary comprador class promotes the Intellectual interest of the West. The writers who emigrate from their countries of birth often write back. They write in reminiscent mood and write to expose their cultural values. They work under the shadow of multicultural experiences. In fact they reshape their native culture instead of presenting it as it is. They write from a certain point of view. The chronicle and cultural emblems are there but for some secret determinations. They embed a lot of things from their native culture to show that they are presenting facts. A few of these references are decorative but most of them are intentional and for specific objectives to misrepresent the culture. The novels under study provide ample scope to sort out many trickeries of this kind from the text, characters and narrative. How Afghan and Pakistani culture is seen and misrepresented by the writers of Meatless days and Kite Runner in their respective works is the aim of this study.
Cultural and Political Context The geographical liberties after western evacuations do not mean freedom of mind. The constant struggle of the colonial powers to keep the colonized subdued did not end with their return. It was not on the physical level only. It was from within. Their constant efforts to propagate the civilization and sophistication of the west could not be eliminated from the minds. It is because the western powers exploited every nook and corner of human nature to prove them superior. They changed very fabric of society and polity. It was and it is their wish to keep the former colonies still under their influence. For this purpose they use intelligentsia of the East. Fiction writers are the easy and the best prey for this aim. The English system of Education and global propaganda make Eastern writers to idealize the west. End of colonialism squeezed the geographical boundaries only. The people of the colonized are still colonized. They are much influenced by the West. They still idealize the west. The westernized intelligentsia does not like the local people, behaviour and cultures. This phenomenon is revealed through their works. World literature is influenced by the shifting relations between world-wide capital flows, national publishing industries and university systems. All these resources are in the hands of the West. A person fond of becoming a writer is to yield to them for fortune and fame.
Research Questions i- How do Sara Suleri and Khalid Hosseini misrepresents their respective cultures in Meatless Days and Kite Runner. ii- How do they implicitly prove the superiority of western culture?
Hypothesis
The misrepresentation of culture provides a chance to the west to prove its cultural hegemony.
Objectives of the Research
The objectives of the research are:
i. To identify the ways of misrepresentation of culture in Meatless days and Kite Runner. ii. To investigate Western view of East West relationship. iii. To evaluate the importance of True cultural presentation.
Significance of Research The cultural invasion is the latest method of colonialism. The imperial powers do not invade physically now. They reshape the minds and achieve their targets. Literature is the major weapon along with media. The literature provides such evidence that it is being exploited for cultural invasion. The fiction writers knowingly and unknowingly speak their language and express their ideas. It is a very dangerous practice and has damaged the cultural values. People are made to yield to the alien culture.
Delimitation
The culture presentation is used as a weapon or propaganda tool. It is a qualitative research based on Textual analysis. The study would be limited to the texts of novels.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Isha Dalal of Haveford College wrote in her essay about Sara Suleri’ “Sara Suleri’s fascination with syntax as an infant led to confusion between individual words. (Isha2007) Vinay Lal writes in his review of Sara Suleri’s The Rhetoric of English India.
Suleri argues that the study of colonial discourse has been too bound to the idea of otherness, to the binarism of East and West, female and male, colonized and colonizer, to allow the decentering of master-narratives to which it aspires, and which has been so critical for the arguments now associated with postmodernism and post colonialism.
The fiction published from the foreign lands reveals that the contents are always in favour of the west. There is a severe criticism on the culture and traditions of the native lands of the writers. Such writings are popular with the west and get quick recognition, honour, rewards and awards from the governments and publishing houses. Cultural representation is favourite with them and it is always one of the major themes of their literary works. Ali Usman Saleem in ’ (eSharp Issue 21: Silenced Voices) Meatless Days, written in geographical and temporal dislocation, is embedded with social and political connotations. Dr. Mubina Talaat, Dr. Mamuna Ghani wrote about The Metaphor of Meatless Days and in their abstract they say,’ ‘She produced a biography Meatless Days which won acclaim the world over for its dexterous execution of tales narrated in such a manner as to fuse the personal with the political history of the country. There are Comparative Studies of different novels of South Asian writers according to postmodern critical theories and postcolonial one. Brandon Brown discusses autobiography and nativity of Sara Suleri, Kate Cook analyses her work from third world point of view, Erica Dillon, Jeremy Finer Phoebe Koch, Jennifer Gin Lee Laura Otis Uzoma Ukomadu ,Elissa Popoff,Neel Parekh all have done well to discuss various issues like feminism, diction, satire and style from their own point of view. The researchers have often tried to prove the worth of these eastern writers from their own point of view-the western point of view. There is little which challenges their contents and worth. They have not touched the issue of misrepresentation of local culture.
Research Methodology
Qualitative Research methodology as Text analysis is followed.
Theoretical framework Post colonialism provide a vast fabric to evaluate and analyse the literary works.
Orientalism is one of the most influential theories of post colonialism. It becomes a touchstone to judge a work from certain angle. A text is structured like a textile but the weaving is not done by the Author, it is a consequence of the particular conditions which make the text possible. Orientalism constructs binary division between orient and Occident. It is propagated through literature of all kind. Orient is considered timeless and strange. It incites racism, gender inequality, and is considered as feminine, it is degenerate. Typical stereotypes and weaknesses as cowardliness, laziness, untrustworthiness, fickleness, laxity, violence and lust are related to oriental people. Orientals are considered as possessing weak moral sense and the readiness to indulge themselves in the more dubious aspects of human behaviour. Orientalism advanced the notion the oriental people needed to be civilized and made to obey perceived higher moral standard of the west. Glimpse of such traits is found in the characters and narrative of both these
novels.
In introduction to his Postcolonial Reader Ashcfart says that all post-colonial societies are still subject in one way or another to several forms of neo-colonial domination. Their geographical independence has not bestowed them with real freedom –freedom of thought. New elites, especially the literary ones, have come into being due to neo-colonial methods and these elites are devoid of national conscience. They are often unscrupulous and always try to enhance their status. For this purpose they can go much farther than the real colonial powers. They recognize themselves with the colonial powers. Such elites are still the real cause of destruction of the local cultures and societies. The insignificant differences based on religion, sects, race and language are incites and made palpable for exploitation. This class is called comprador class and is more dangerous than the imperialists themselves. To keep their hegemony and monopoly over the locals this class surpasses the imperialists in emotional barbarity and exploitations. It knowingly tries to camouflage itself with the locals and is always on the way to influence the opinion of the people through different means. Although they use many tools for this purpose yet fictional literature is the major one. Their major ambition is to please the former colonial and imperial power which has become their benefactor too. In the words of Baldwin they become the bastards of the west. They are like the off springs of birds which have fallen from their nests and cannot regain their home in spite of hundreds of jumps or efforts. They have to become a prey to the predators. The post-colonialism could be completely understood by the remarks of The German philosopher Hegel when he says, ‘’The negro as already observed exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality—all that we call feeling—if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character…The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia is the beginning’’. The Orientalism of them Edward Said, Cultural studies of Homi K.Bhaba and George Lamming theory of Exile help us to understand the problem of the Asian writers.
The post-colonial writers always use their native lands as the raw material for their writings and construct an anti-native structure through it from the western point of view.
They think that the native culture is not worth propagating and the western culture is superior to it in all respects. The postcolonial theory is a conglomerate of theories. It is in fact more than a theory. It involves every aspect of literary criticism. The most important issue is the culture. Spivak, Said and Homi K.Bhaba wrote about the influence of colonial writing on culture. It is culture which is mainly exploited by the colonial and neo colonial powers to advance their interests.
Post-colonial literature is highly oriented towards literary theory of post colonialism. It is stimulated by the flourishing of literatures written by colonized peoples in colonial languages (particularly English), it is becoming widely used in historical, political and sociological analyses as its relevance to these disciplines. Theories of post colonialism have made it clear that colonisers are not sincere and their fiction is pointed and exploitative. Their writing are part of the general effort to rule distant lands and people.The Post-colonial critics have agreed that Post-colonialism is a constant resistance and reconstruction. Post-colonial theory involves discussion migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial powers. Ashcraft and others write in the Postcolonial Reader’s introduction that by the term ‘post-colonial’ we do not imply an automatic, nor a unbroken and unchanging process of resistance but a series of connections and enunciations without which the process cannot be properly addressed. These linkages and articulations are not always directly opposite. There has always been an attempt to silence the postcolonial voices and it is done through a special kind of writers. Jan Mohamed analyses the literary text in quite specific ways as a means of bringing into being and modifying the controlling discourses of colonisation by using Lacan’s binarisms of colonial discourse: the self-other, civilised-native, us-them.
Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Gayatri Spivak challenge the subalterns to speak. They are of the view that subalterns are not only entity of colonial age but also there in every postcolonial society even in America.
Gyatri Spivak says that the subalterns are perpetual being and would perpetually live all over the world even in the first second or third world.
Homi K Bhaba and Edward Said evaluated texts as an apparatus of control. For Bhabha the ‘emblem of the English book’ is one of the most important of the ‘signs taken for wonders’ by which the coloniser controls the imagination and the aspirations of the colonised, because the book assumes a greater authority than the experience of the colonised peoples themselves. Bhaba speaks of ‘imitation’ ‘mimicry’ hybridity and authenticity.
George Lamming writes in Occasion for Speaking,
What is the source of their insecurity in the world of letters? And what, on the evidence of their work, is the range of their ambition as writers whose nourishment is now elsewhere (George Lamming 1960.)
He questions the exile of colonised and says that they migrate to ‘Headquarters’ for recognition as a writer. This is not only the reason; there are many overt and covert reasons of this exile of Writers. The psychological recognition of superiority of the colonized culture is all at the roots of separating from the roots. The comprador class always does such things. There are many literary compradors which always work for its interests and the interests of the foreigners.
Chapterization:
i- Introduction ii- Literature Review iii- Research Methodology iv- Analysis of the novels Meatless Days and The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini from cultural point of view. v- Comparative study of both the novels as they have the elements of Cultural invasion. vi- Conclusion

References:
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin . The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures , London:( Routledge, 1989)
Baldwin, James.
Notes of A Native Son, London, 1964
Bhabha, Homi , The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994)
Bertens, Hans. Literary theory, The basics.NewYark: (Routledge, 2008)
Bennet,Andrew &Nicholas,Royal. Introduction to literature,criticism and theory.London(Pearson,2004)
Bhabha, Homi K. Nation and Narration, London:( Routledge, 1990).
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite runner. New Yark: Riverhead books, 2003. Print).
Harlow: Pearson, 2005
Julia Kristeva - Revolution in Poetic Language, 1984
Jacque Lacan - The Ego in Freud 's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1988;
Lamming, George. The Pleasures of Exile, London: (Michael Joseph. 1960)
Said, Edward. Orientalism, London:(( Routledge. 1978)
Seldon, Raman et al A reader 's Guide to Cotemporary Literary Theory.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?. (Wedge ,1985)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, New York: (Methuen. 1988)
Sara Suleri, Meatless Days Portland (powell , 1991)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (Nelson and Lawrence 1988)
Tyson, Lois. Critical theory today, a user friendly Guide .London: (Routledge,
2006)