Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Overview of History, Language and Literature in Malaysia
So is there such a thing as a Malaysian identity? In order to explore this question further, it isnecessary to understand a little of the history of the region. For the sake of clarity, the distinctionbetween the words Malay, Malaya, Malayan, Malaysia and Malaysian need to be highlighted. JimBaker, in his popular history of Malaysia and Singapore, makes this distinction clearly,The Malays are a racial group, and Malay is their language ... Malaya was a British creation^and refers to the states formerly controlled by the British on the Malay Peninsula ... Malayansrefer to the inhabitants of the peninsula . . . Malaysia was created in 1963' (and)Malaysians are citizens of this country, regardless of race. (10-11)Geographically, the region is strategically located along the ancient shipping routesbetween the Pacific and Indian Oceans and alongside the Straits of Malacca and Sunda.Situated as it is between the two giants of Asian culture and civilization, China and India, itwas well frequented by early Chinese and Indian traders and travellers. These earlytravellers were basically assimilated with the local inhabitants, adopting and integrating thelocal language and culture with their own. Its strategic location, howevo?，also attractedevery trading power that arose in succeeding years. Portugal conqua-ed Melaka in 1511 and established a colony there. With the growth of Dutch power，their interest in theregion also grew, until in 1641，they gained control of，and ruled Melaka for the nextcentury and a half. The British entered the picture in the mid-eighteenth century, bringingthe English language with them. By 1914，the entire Peninsula was under British rule.
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1.2 Review of literary analysis
The field of literary research and analysis of Malaysian literature in English can be consideredquite small. The handful of prominent scholars in this area includes Mohammad A. Quayum, Peter C.Wicks, Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, Bernard Wilson and Syd Harrex. All four creative writers in thisstudy also contribute to critical analysis and scholarship in the field.Interest in Malaysian literature does not appear to be hi迪 in China. There has been substantialattention given to Shirley Lim's work，but many Chinese scholars view her in her context as an AsianAmerican novelist and poet (Pan, 24; Pu, 97) rather tiian as 狂 Malaysian novelist. An article written bya Malaysian scholar on Lee Kok Liang's pioneer status in Malaysian fiction has also been published in aChinese journal (Teoh, 175). Much of the research done is published in Southeast Asia. Historicaldevelopment of Malaysian English literature and analysis of thematic trends linked to historical/politicalevents are popular areas of research.In their book Voices of Many Worlds: Malaysian Literature in English，Fadillah Merican, et. al.present a broad look at Malaysian creative works of different genres from the 1960s to 1990s. Foreach individual writer examined, a brief biography is given together with a discussion of their works.This book is a usefiil introduction to Malaysian literature of the period.Another popular area examines terminology either specific or with special significance to theliterature of the nation such as sectional and national literatures, bi- or multi-lingualism, andperanakan^^ writing. For instance, Quayum explores how the 1967 National Language Act whichelevated the status of literature in Malay to kesusasteraan nasionaf^ while relegating literature inevery other language to kesusasteraan sukuan^^ effectively shrunk production of works in non-Malaylanguages {One Sky, 23-4). Fernando explains the importance of bilingualism in the nation (Cultures，110). Such works are especially helpftil for the non-Malaysian reader of Malaysian works as theyexplain the specific conditions in Malaysia and context within which the writers operate.
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Chapter 2 Envisioning Multiculturalism:Lloyd Fernando's Scorpion Orchid and Green is theColour
2.1 The Struggle for National Unity from the Margins
Sabran and Santinathan, on the margins of their respective ethnic groups, create a new site ofdifference. In learning the colonial language, Sabran has left behind his own Malay community. Hewins a scholarship to Raffles Institution, a high school in Singapore, leaves his village in the Malayan..?‘mainland, and eventually gains admission to the university to join the local elite of the colony. Thegeneral Malay community, meanwhile, continues to languish in abject poverty. Santinathan, on theother hand，is a migrant from India. His father had brought his family to Singapore, only to be killedduring the Japanese occupation. His uncle's family would soon leave to return to India, bringing alonghis mentally handicapped sister, while his other sister, pregnant with the illegitimate child of anEnglishman, would refuse to return with them. Both no longer residing within the centres of their owncommunities, Sabran and Santinathan would forge a bond that is further strengthened when Sabraninvites Santinathan to share a taste of local Malayan life.
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2.2 The Pains and the Misery of those Living in the Interstices
Amidst this negotiation, fear, like the vicious, poisonous scorpion of the title，lurks just beneath thesurface, hidden but ready to strike at any moment. Perhaps, as it is with the birth of any creature, it isimpossible for a national identity to be bom without pain and bloodshed. As Tok Said says，"Birth isbloody." {Scorpion, 64)Tok Said is perhaps the quintessential marginal character in Femando's fiction. He is amysterious presence in Scorpion Orchid, No one knows for sure who or what he is. He does notbelong to any one conununity or location, but from his position on the margins, he dispenses wisdom to all who are able to find him. Those who claim to have met him cannot agree on what racial or ethnicgroup he belongs to. The reader meets him only through hearsay.Sally and Santinathan say they see him in the same place, Kampung Rompin. Sally is a mutualfriend of the four young men, another marginal character who is a waitress and prostitute who servesanyone who comes to her. Sally (who is either Chinese or Malay) says Tok Said is "an old Indian manwith a greying beard" (Scorpion，31), while Santinathan claims that he is Malay {Scorpion, 32). Thiscould either be Femando's way of showing how the different races blame the other for the unrest, or "ofdislodging the race discourse - that racial differences are more illusion than reality." (Quayam, OneSky，85) Sabran meets him in an entirely different place, Ipoh, but he only hears his voice and does notsee him at all (Scorpion, 64). His voice，though, is enough to strike fear in Sabran's heart, so much sothat after the fateful meeting, Sabran sits huddled by the roadside in the dark, trying but unable to puzzleout what Tok Said meant，finally concluding that，"I think he said before others like him come there willbe pain." {Scorpion, 65)
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Chapter 3 Navigating ‘Unhomeliness，： Lee Kok Liang's Flowers........40
3.1 'Unhomeliness' in a Strange Land........ 41
3.2 The Unheimlich at Home ........48
3.3 Uncanny Corrosion and Muteness........53
Chapter 4 Re/thinking Hybridity: K.S. Maniam's The Return and In a Far Country........ 62
4.1 The Hindu Spirituality and the Tamil Caste System........ 63
4.2 The British Colonial Epistemology ........68
4.3 The Malaysian diversity........ 73
Chapter 5 Dismantling Dichotomies: Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Joss........ 80
5.1 The Ideal of Racial/National Purity........ 82
5.2 Patriarchalism and Women's Rights........ 89
5.3 Beyond the Coloniser/Colonised Dichotomy........ 93
Chapter 5 Dismantling Dichotomies:Shirley Geok-lin Lim's Joss and Gold and Sister Swing
5.1 The Ideal of Racial/National Purity
At the beginning of Joss and Gold，Malaysia has gained independence for about a decade. Thereis much discussion in the young society of a new or national identity. Fierce arguments rage betweenpreserving a pure Malay traditional and cultural past and developing a new mixed identity. As theso-called original inhabitants of the land, the Malays running the new paper print "daily editorialsdemanding special rights for Malays." (Joss, 56) Li An feels uncomfortable reading such views,they make her "feel she was in danger of attack in an alien country" {Joss, 56). Yet when she hasdiscussions with the writer, Abdullah, a journalist who had graduated from the university at the sametime as her，she finds him "funny and gentle ... She didn't feel threatened when he explained the needfor Malay special ri^ts intelligently and elegantly; he made it seem fair and just，a readjustment to thefundamental design of the dance. She liked the idea of the Malaysian future as this gentle weavingreadjustment" {Joss、56). She wishes that the paper would present their views in this light, butAbdullah insists that it did, and that Li An is just not reading it right. Despite his support of purity,Abdullah presents two different faces — the strident, uncompromising nationalist in his writing and thegentle, intelligent negotiator in his daily life.
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Conclusion
'Who am I?’ and ‘Who are we?, are universal questions that concern people everywhere. Thefirst question deals with personal identity, the things - experiences, characteristics, talents and values -that make an individual unique. The second deals with social identity, an identity that is shared withothers in a group, such as a community or a nation，that you belong to and care about. (Jones，et. al.，149) These idoitities are affected by the people and environment that one interacts with, and in 汪plural society such as Malaysia's, such identities remain in flux and have to be constantly negotiated.In fact, in today's global world, very few nations can claim to have a homogenous society with aperfectly stabilised identity. This thesis is concerned with identity negotiation in postcolonial nations,and specifically, it examines the problematics of identity formation in the contemporary English fictionof Malaysia.Prior to independence from colonial rule, embracing a common identity for Malaysians was not aparticularly difficult task. For one thing，having a common enemy in the colonial power wassomething diat draws the people together. For another, this identity was probably something that wascreated by the colonial power in the first instance, and had been introduced and imposed on thecolonised through a combination of coercion and consent. This is Gramsci's concept of hegemony.Gramsci "argued that the ruling classes achieve domination not by force or coercion alone, but also bycreating subjects who ‘willingly’ submit to being ruled." (in Loomba, 29)
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