Imperial Pretensions and The Pleasures of Conquest
In: The Politics of English as a World LanguageSearch for other papers by Yvette Tan in
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Abstract
Yasmine Gooneratne’s Pleasures of Conquest is set in “Amnesia” (post-colonial Sri Lanka in disguise). Potent overtones of cultural and economic hegemony are manifest in the novel. This is clearly illustrated in the “Mallinson Project,” named after its patron, the American pulp-romance novelist Stella Mallinson. Like the other satirical characters in the novel, Stella “demonstrates a familiar pattern of fallibility, based on illusions of grandeur and ill-conceived notions of philanthropic responsibility” (Khan 1986: 359). With the support of the Amnesian Government, she aspires to translate into English a series of Amnesia love stories. The “Mallinson Project,” however, can be seen as “an act of imperialism, a misappropriation of Amnesia culture as transgressive as the physical invasion by the British” (Shaw 1996: 49). My essay will seek to explore the cultural ramifications of imperialism in Gooneratne’s fiction. I will also examine Gooneratne’s deft use of irony and comedy as a way of ‘writing back’.