dc.description.abstract | This thesis is focused on life experiences of the four characters that can be categorized into the subaltern in Michelle Cliff’s two semi-autobiographical novels, No Telephone to Heaven and Abeng, who are often neglected in other critics’ analyses of the novels. These four characters, Christopher, Bobby, Zoe and Kitty, are different in their backgrounds and social status, and the exploitation and predicament they have suffered are not the same, either. That is, what makes them subaltern is different, and this suggests that the category of the subaltern is not a single or fixed organization, but there could be dissimilarities, contradictions and also conflicts. As Gayatri Spivak has claimed that “the subaltern cannot speak,” because their voices will be appropriated by the first world scholars who think they can represent the subaltern people. Consequently, the subaltern people’s claims and voices are lost, and thus they cannot speak. However, by examining the experiences of these four subaltern characters together and in detail, it would be seen that before the subaltern’s voice could be appropriated, it is lost, forgotten or neglected. The reason is that the predicaments caused by exploitations and oppressions have made them do not wish to speak, but choose to be silent or even to conform to the dominant powers instead of voicing their claims. Nevertheless, this kind of silence and conformity is their own way of resistance to the injustices produced by colonialism, class, gender and other ideologies, even though it seems to be passive or submissive. In other words, these characters not only reveal that there could be dissimilarities and even conflicts in the subaltern group, but also bring out the possibility of a passive kind of resistance and therefore problematize the general notion of resistance as the revolutionary action. However, if the critics neglected or overlooked these trivial but important aspects of these four characters, they might fall into the trap of epistemic violence in the critical level. | en_US |