Abstract
Bearing the marks of modern day satire with the evident playful revisions of Forster’s A Passage to India, Kipling’s Kim, and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist has since publication proved to be a compelling commentary upon the highly troublesome legacies of imperialism. Though in part concealed by an elaborate tapestry of divergent characters, extravagant settings, and bizarre incidents, the 2002 debut novel is marked by a strong agenda of postcolonial scepticism which above all has allowed Kunzru to explore the ever ambivalent themes of race and identity in the context of colonialism. However, at the heart of the resulting cultural transgressions and racial hybridity particular to the novel’s protagonist, is a little disguised pattern of explicit opposition to previous authors and texts. It is this, Kunzru’s striking practice of amending earlier colonial works to suit a revised and oftentimes conflicting postcolonial end, that this thesis strives to investigate by locating The Impressionist in relation to its literary predecessors.