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Post-colonial adaptations of Shakespeare's plays
Hlaváčková, Anna ; Pšenička, Martin (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
This thesis deals with the analyses of three adaptations of Shakespeare's plays in postcolonial countries like Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and Republic of South Africa. Three plays are examined in historical and cultural context of colonial and post-colonial theatre of the countries mentioned above. The first chapter of the thesis familiarizes the reader with problems of colonialism and its cultural effects. The aim of the thesis is to point out to the way, in which the authors of the adaptations treat the works of William Shakespeare, the leading playwright of mother imperium - Great Britain, and simultaneously emphasize unusual position of the adaptations in the framework of their cultural surrounding and in the framework of post-colonial drama.
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Homegrown stereotyping: the shaping of Canadian consciousness through television broadcasting
Prosečová, Lenka ; Kolinská, Klára (advisor) ; Jindra, Miroslav (referee)
To define Canada and the Canadian nation is no easy task. From a historical perspective, Canada is a very young country: until 1949 there was no Canadian citizenship, the Canadian flag appeared as late as 1965, and it wasn't until 1967 that the Canadian national anthem could be heard. Although Canada would thereafter finally seem to have been able to establish its distinct identity in opposition to its mother country, Canadian patriotism has continued to be problematic. Despite years of efforts to form a pan-Canadian identity - characterized especially by Pierre Trudeau's attempts to institute federal bilingualism and a pan-Canadian identity rooted in liberal individualism - the existence of a self-conscious Canadian nation remains questionable. Within the Canadian Anglophone population there seems to be no unified notion of a panCanadian nation and thus no innate nationalism. Furthermore, for the rest of the world, Canada remains a mystery, an "Unknown Country."] Arthur Lismer, a member of the Group of Seven, assessed the situation as follows: "after 1919 most creative people, whether in painting, writing or music, began to have a guilty feeling that Canada was as yet unwritten, unpainted, unsung [ ... ],,2 Indeed, efforts were made to "capture" Canada in paintings, photography, in poetry and prose, in...
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Female heroines in the English gothic novel
Challyjeva, Aknur ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
In a brilliant parody of the Gothic novel Jane Austen jokes about the differences between men and women, claiming that the former read history and the latter only novels. The novel mentioned above is Northanger Abbey, and the young heroine affected by reading novels is Catherine Morland. Albeit she enjoys reading novels and in particular Gothic novels, she is still somewhat ashamed of her taste in literature. However, her embarrassment decreases when she hears that the object of her adoration is also greatly fond of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's writing: "I am very glad to hear it, indeed: and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought before, young men despised novels amazingly."1 Austen's tone is only gently mocking her heroine's taste in literature, on the contrary she acknowledges the genius of Ann Radcliffe and other great novelists of the time. Indeed, if her sarcasm is targeted against anyone, it would be against the literary critics and the general population who discarded the Gothic novel as a trifling genre read by women. It is striking since Gothic novels are not exactly what could be called a proper reading for young women. The novels portray all types of violence and cruelty, they tell stories of incest, unbelievable brutality, and horrors. In the case of Ann Radcliffe...
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Cultural Conflicts in the Writing of Hanif Kureishi
Dongresová, Marta ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The situation of immigrants in Britain has been inspiring writers for several decades and Hanif Kureishi is no exception. His own background allows him to describe the immigrant experience from the realistic perspective of an insider and his characters reflect the conflicts that immigrants have to deal with during their life among the members of the dominant culture of the state. The thesis focuses on The Buddha of Suburbia, while it also makes short digressions and touches upon a number of other works which were published by Kureishi from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s, such as The Black Album, My Son the Fanatic, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Rainbow Sign and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. The whole discussion consists of three parts and begins with a chapter which primarily concentrates on important theoretical terms and their definitions that are necessary for all analyses of diasporic literatures; the terms and concepts are then applied to Kureishi's books and scripts. The second chapter deals with the conflicts experienced by the first generation immigrants who try to find out who they are as people as they oscillate between the culture of their country or origin and England, while the third chapter focuses on the second generation immigrants born in Britain who want to gain an identity in England...
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Heritage and Innovation II - Polynesian Literature in English - F. J. Frisbie, Patricia Grace and Sia Figiel: three generations of authors
Binarová, Teata ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The three Polynesian women writers - Florence (Johnny) Frisbie (b. 1932, Cook Islands), Patricia Grace (b. 1937, New Zealand) and Sia Figiel (b. 1967, Samoa) - represent three key stages in the development of Polynesian literature in English that are intrinsically linked to the transforming post-colonial context. Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka: The Autobiography of a South Sea Trader's Daughter by F. J. Frisbie, published in 1948, is being defined as the founding text of this new literature. The autobiographical work is set in the Polynesian colonial background. Patricia Grace belongs to the first generation of Polynesian authors writing in English. She participates with them in the so-called "Maori Renaissance" that is embedded in the larger pan-Polynesian movement of resistance against British colonial hegemony and of indigenous cultural revivals started in the 1960's. Sia Figiel is a leading writer in the already established Polynesian contemporary literary scene of the 1990's. The region is almost entirely independent by now. The privileged literary themes and the linguistic choices of these three indigenous authors, together with their selected narrative techniques, reflect the on-going political and cultural emancipation of the autochthones. The writers increasingly liberate themselves from the...
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Prejudice, Cultural Clash, Female Role, Nation and Nationaly in the Novels of Ying Chen
Navrátilová, Leona ; Kolinská, Klára (advisor) ; Jindra, Miroslav (referee)
Ying Chen is a Canadian writer of Chinese origin who writes in French. In her novels, she investigates immigration which is closely connected with displacement and the loss of one's original identity. Her literary work is primarily aimed at the North American readership so she includes a lot of details of historical events and social facts about China. Ying Chen belongs to the group of authors who are labelled as immigrant writers. The majority of her literary work centres around the recurring themes of nationalism, feminism, imagination and immigration, which can lead to a loss of original identity. Ying Chen investigates whether a person can exchange his identity, that which was given to him by his parents, with a new one. In her second published novel, L'Ingratitude, Ying Chen speaks through the character of the dominant mother and says: "A person without parents is miserable, like a people without history." With these words she indicates the impossibility of exchanging one's nationhood, national history, and identity. We need to accept who we are, and she emphasises this fact in her novel, Immobile, saying, "I am myself."
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Stolen generation in Australia
Valentová, Zuzana ; Armand, Louis (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The main theme of this thesis is Australia's "Stolen Generation." This term refers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were removed by force from their families between the years 1909 - 1969. However, these years are only unofficial numbers and it is known that the removals took place even before and after this period. The aim of this policy was to assimilate the Aboriginal people in order to educate them in the British manner. This policy was an act of cruelty and abuse since the children were brought away from their families and put into state institutions or foster care to suppress their culture. The aim of the thesis is to portray the development of the Aboriginal culture; beginning with the situation prior to British colonization and ending with the current situation in Australia. The thesis analyses the situation during the colonization and after it because the process of colonization caused further changes. It demonstrates the inability of the Indigenous people to assimilate to the new lifestyle. After the colonization, the Aborigines were deprived of their land and their traditional culture. The worst policies were the removals of so-called 'half-caste' children from their families, which were nothing less than forcible removals that were done without any permission from their...
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Sky Woman, Trickster, Windigo: Reflections of Traditional Storytelling in Contemporary Canadian Indigenous Novel
Marešová, Jana ; Kolinská, Klára (advisor) ; Horáková, Martina (referee) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Sky Woman, Trickster, Windigo: Reflections of Traditional Storytelling in Contemporary Canadian Indigenous Novel Žena z nebe (Sky Woman), Šprýmař (Trickster), Windigo: Reflexe tradičního vypravěčství v současném kanadském indigenním románu Mgr. Jana Marešová ABSTRACT Storytelling is an essential constituent of Indigenous cultures in Canada which transmits and preserves Indigenous knowledge and value systems. This work examines the way contemporary Indigenous writers work with the tradition of oral storytelling in their writing. At first, the role and importance of storytelling for Indigenous cultures, and consequently for literature, is discussed. The following analysis of individual novels is centered around three characters significant and recurrent in Indigenous storytelling - Sky Woman, the trickster, and the windigo, and it studies the way oral storytelling shapes the narrative styles, and how Indigenous referential frameworks are manifested in this process. The theoretical background is informed mainly by sources from Indigenous scholars and the texts are analysed through concepts based on Indigenous perspectives on storytelling, which hopes to bring a different view on these texts than the readings based on postcolonial and postmodern theory frequently applied in recent decades. This dissertation...
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"You fellars does live in a dream world.": Identity Crisis in Sam Selvon's Caribbean Fiction
Karayel, Hikmet Işıl ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The thesis aims to analyse Sam Selvon's fiction between 1950 and 1990 in relation to the colonial subjects' identity crisis. The thesis will argue that Selvon's fiction is independent of traditional and canonical categories because his representation of colonial subjects is entirely innovative and unprecedented. I will analyse Selvon's novels A Brighter Sun (1952), An Island is a World (1955), The Lonely Londoners (1956), The Housing Lark (1965), Moses Ascending (1975), and Moses Migrating (1983). Each novel sheds light on a different facet of the colonial subject. Nevertheless, colonisation, migration, and identity crisis are common themes for the novels chosen. From A Brighter Sun to Moses Migrating, Selvon destroys the caricatured image of the colonised subject. He reaches authenticity on the level of character depiction and through the vernacular, ballad-like narrative. Additionally, the novels represent different aspects of colonisation and migration: "back at home", "the motherland", and "back and forth". I will display how every aspect is fluid and undefinable. A Brighter Sun takes place in the West Indies. An Island is a World displays "back and forth" experience in the West Indies, USA, and Britain. The Lonely Londoners, The Housing Lark, and Moses Ascending take place in "the motherland"....
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