A Postcolonial Study of Grace Li’s Portrait of a Thief through Homi Bhabha’s Theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63313/SSH.9054Keywords:
Postcolonial theory, Homi Bhabha, Portrait of a Thief, hybridity, third space, resistanceAbstract
Grace Li’s novel Portrait of a Thief (2022) describes five Chinese-American college students who embark on a mission to reclaim looted Chinese bronze zodiac heads from western museums. It resonates deeply with postcolonial discourses of cultural identity, historical injustice and power negotiation. This paper argues that Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theoretical framework, specifically his concepts of hybridity and the third space, offers a critical lens to reveal the novel’s resistance against colonial power and the dynamic reconstruction of cultural meaning. By analyzing the protagonists’ position as both insiders and outsiders within western society, this study demonstrates how Portrait of a Thief shows Bhabha’s vision of postcolonial resistance as a creative process. Through detailed textual analysis, this paper explores how Li’s narrative opposes essentialist notions of eastern and western cultures, revealing the third space as a site of dialogue rather than domination.
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