My Son the Fanatic
My Son the Fanatic
1. Introduction
The theme of my term paper is the analysis of a short story with special regard to the socio-cultural and historical background. All the stories I could have chosen for that in school result from our semester theme "Britain: Past and Present", but the story of my special choice was: "My son the fanatic", by Hanif Kureishi. I have chosen this story because, as reported by my English teacher, this story does not only describe the situation of immigrants in Great Britain, it also describes problems between a father and his son so that the story also has reference to every boy′s life.
So I hope the story will be interesting to read and will also help me to learn more about Britain′s past and present.
2. Historical and socio-cultural background
2.1. Postcolonial time of Great Britain with special regard to the immigration
With the demands for self-government, sovereignty and the dissatisfaction with the British rule more and more colonies of the British Empire claimed their independence at the end of the 19th century. So the first result of this claim was the achievement of the "dominion" status by many colonies about 1900, which declared them to be a free nation. Finally in 1926 the "British Commonwealth of Nations" was founded which meant that all former colonies of the British Empire had reached total independence though united by a common allegiance to the British Crown, with the right to leave the Commonwealth.
With the British Nationality Act in 1948, which created a British citizenship for every member of the British Commonwealth, a mass immigration into Great Britain began. Most of the two million immigrants were Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. On the one hand they came to Britain because of racial discrimination and persecution in their own country and on the other hand it was just the time when the British economy was growing and so they were welcome or recruited to work in badly-paid and less popular jobs even
1. Introduction
The theme of my term paper is the analysis of a short story with special regard to the socio-cultural and historical background. All the stories I could have chosen for that in school result from our semester theme "Britain: Past and Present", but the story of my special choice was: "My son the fanatic", by Hanif Kureishi. I have chosen this story because, as reported by my English teacher, this story does not only describe the situation of immigrants in Great Britain, it also describes problems between a father and his son so that the story also has reference to every boy′s life.
So I hope the story will be interesting to read and will also help me to learn more about Britain′s past and present.
2. Historical and socio-cultural background
2.1. Postcolonial time of Great Britain with special regard to the immigration
With the demands for self-government, sovereignty and the dissatisfaction with the British rule more and more colonies of the British Empire claimed their independence at the end of the 19th century. So the first result of this claim was the achievement of the "dominion" status by many colonies about 1900, which declared them to be a free nation. Finally in 1926 the "British Commonwealth of Nations" was founded which meant that all former colonies of the British Empire had reached total independence though united by a common allegiance to the British Crown, with the right to leave the Commonwealth.
With the British Nationality Act in 1948, which created a British citizenship for every member of the British Commonwealth, a mass immigration into Great Britain began. Most of the two million immigrants were Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. On the one hand they came to Britain because of racial discrimination and persecution in their own country and on the other hand it was just the time when the British economy was growing and so they were welcome or recruited to work in badly-paid and less popular jobs even