Calling for the Other's "Help": The Modes of Self-Other Relationship in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North

Hui-Yun Lai

Self ； Other ； altruism ； hybridity ； discontinuity ； origin ； purity ； continuity

小說與戲劇

17期（2007 / 03 / 01）

113 - 145

英文

This article attempts to illustrate how Tayeb Salih demystifies the ideas of purity and continuity and the stereotype of knowledge of Self-Other relationships in Season of Migration to the North. Believing that a pure and original cultural heritage can be retraced and preserved, the characters in the novel make every effort to avoid contamination of the notions of Otherness-newness, foreignness, and difference. In order to maintain the purity and wholeness of their national, cultural as well as individual identity, they intentionally ignore and deny the existence of hybridity. This rejection of ”Not-I” leads them to classify human relationships in terms of Self vs. Other and to presume that the Self is superior and the Other is inferior self-centered tactic which reduces human relationships to a warfare-like conflict to solidify one's own subjective position. However, as shown in the novel, such a mode of Self-Other relationships leads people to impose their ego-centrism upon others, leading to dreadful consequences that might even destroy both the Self and the Other. Concerning the harm and danger that can result from an antagonistic Self-Other relationship, Salih appeals for a new mode of Self-Other relationships based on tolerance and altruism that promise hope, survival, and even reciprocity for both the Self and the Other. Therefore, with the help of Homi Bhabha's idea of ”unhomeliness” and ”hybridization,” C.F. Keppler's ”the second self,” Michel Foucault's ”discontinuity” and ”differentiation,” and Julia Kristeva's ”individualism's subversion,” along with some other critics' insightful observations of Season of Migration to the North, this article aims to examine how Salih demonstrates the two modes of Self-Other relationship and the existence of hybridity through his questioning of the idea of purity and continuity.

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