Traditionally silence is perceived as withdrawal or as a withholding of meaning, hence the desire to break that silence in order to recover its hidden significance. The producers of post-colonial writing are burdened by a constant awareness that the cultural myths that inform their writing and the language they use are vehicles for a provisional truth, which has been dictated by the demands of the empire. The necessary abrogation of the received language creates, for the post colonial writer, a crisis of authority, which finds textual representation in figures of silence. Keri Hulme's The Bone People and David Malouf s An Imaginary Life, both thematize the writer's necessary quest beyond the boundaries of conventional language through the relationship of an artist-protagonist with a mute child. The progress of this interaction may be seen as an emblem of the writer’s examination of language and related revision of the dialogue between self and other which constitutes the artistic exchange.
El-Gafi, L. M. (2007). The Language of Silence in Post-Colonial Writing: David Malouf's An Imaginary Life & Keri Hulme's The Bone People. Journal of Languages and Translation, 5(2), 26-44. doi: 10.21608/jltmin.2007.151726
MLA
Lamees Mohamed El-Gafi. "The Language of Silence in Post-Colonial Writing: David Malouf's An Imaginary Life & Keri Hulme's The Bone People", Journal of Languages and Translation, 5, 2, 2007, 26-44. doi: 10.21608/jltmin.2007.151726
HARVARD
El-Gafi, L. M. (2007). 'The Language of Silence in Post-Colonial Writing: David Malouf's An Imaginary Life & Keri Hulme's The Bone People', Journal of Languages and Translation, 5(2), pp. 26-44. doi: 10.21608/jltmin.2007.151726
VANCOUVER
El-Gafi, L. M. The Language of Silence in Post-Colonial Writing: David Malouf's An Imaginary Life & Keri Hulme's The Bone People. Journal of Languages and Translation, 2007; 5(2): 26-44. doi: 10.21608/jltmin.2007.151726
)
View on SCiNiTO