Opening Lecture - Postcolonial Literature
"Postcolonial literature" is essentially
a political category, a shorthand term for an attempt to find similarities
among various Third World national literatures. Postcolonial studies as
a distinct area of interest has become more prominent since the late 1970s,
in part triggered by Said's Orientalism (1978), which called attention
to the way that Western literary discourse about "the East" tended to define
non-European peoples and cultures as an alien "other," not part of the
universalist culture of the West.
Postcolonial literature
has been defined by Ashcroft as any literature affected by the colonial
experience, including that of the colonial period itself. Theoretically,
this could include writers such as Kipling, an Anglo-Indian, as well as
literatures such as American or Irish; usually, however, these are excluded.
Colonial countries can be divided into settler (Australia, Canada) and
non-settler countries, although this division is not a "clean" one (and
countries like the U.S. are usually not included, despite a history of
European colonization, because of our current position of power in the
world (Japan and other politically significant non-Western countries are
also usually excluded for a variety of reasons)). Most typically, "postcolonial"
refers to countries that exist at the margin of "mainstream" political
and cultural activity, and these are usually the non-settler countries.
We will contrast "Imperial" or "colonialist" literature, which takes as
normal or "universal" aspects of political power and culture associated
with the "home country" (European colonial power) and as "alien" or "other"
the politics and culture of the colonized country, with "postcolonial"
literature which specifically focuses on tensions between indigenous culture
and the late colonizers, and/or problematizes the issue of perspective.
Issues in postcolonial studies
include how Western style education and the imposition of Western culture
affects the indigenous cultures of colonized states; the significance of
linguistic choices in literary creation; the psychological expression of
a speaker who has been culturally indoctrinated to see himself as inferior,
or to be alienated from his (sociocultural) self. Issues include race,
class, and gender relations as influenced by the colonial situation.
Even such apparently sensitive
texts as Conrad's Heart of Darkness may perpetuate "colonialist" attitudes,
as Chinua Achebe has pointed out. Marlow's narration robs the native African
of legitimate humanity, even while decrying imperialism of other whites.
The problem for the critic is to avoid duplicating Conrad's "sin" - to
take one's own experiences as the norm and to present oneself as authority
on the discourse of the "other" (296). Achebe has objected to readings
that emphasize the "universal truths" as those that echo with Western culture,
when that culture is taken as the norm. But Henricksen points out that
there are also flaws in the opposite temptation, to see non-Western writing
as "exotic" (299-300). In this course, our reading needs to foreground
critical assumptions about relationship between dominant and subaltern
literatures, recognize the tentative nature of these assumptions and the
political implications of authors' choice of language and implied audience
(303).
In the colonial world, political
power was enforced via economic and cultural hegemony. Even at the height
of the British Empire, for instance, England's power was economic rather
than military - the army and navy were stretched thin in covering so many
economic outposts. So other tools were needed to control native populations:
British culture served this purpose. Everywhere, British systems of government
and education were superimposed on existing cultures, along with the English
language (which remains a unifying force in countries like India). British
policy from early on was to export British culture, including governmental
forms and literature, music, etc. Similar efforts to impose European culture
on "natives" were undertaken by the French and some of the other major
colonial powers -- note for instance the ubiquity of Spanish language and
culture on the former Spanish Empire. This was criticized even at the time
by a few observers, as for example the British politician Sir Edward Cust
in 1839: "To give a colony the forms of independence is a mockery; she
would not be a colony for a single hour if she could maintain an independent
station." (Qtd in Bhabha, 85). But these objections were not raised by
those friendly to the "natives" - rather by those who thought there should
be greater subjugation.
These efforts were remarkably
successful. Rashna Singh quotes Ved Mehta, a "cultural inheritor" of colonialism,
as bemoaning the absence of Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland from his
childhood experience; no mention is made of Indian folktales or other indigenous
literary forms. Colonial culture imposed its values on "inferior" former
colonies, causing some to attempt merger with the larger culture by denying
origins - e.g., Henry James and T.S. Eliot becoming "English" rather than
"American" writers. This is akin to what Bhabha calls "mimicry" - i.e.,
colonial subjects seek to imitate the cultural behavior of the powerful,
so as to escape their characterization as "other." But "to be Anglicized
is emphatically not to be English" (Bhabha, 87); the colonial mimic, by
failure to be "authentic," reveals the distortions of cultural difference.
The Anglicized colonial is forever caught between two cultures, not allowed
to be part of the one that he/she has embraced, but having already repudiated
the other.
Recognition of this position contributed
to one of the early revolutionary critiques of colonialism, that of Frantz
Fanon, a French writer born in Martinique and educated to conceive himself
as French. However, his education in France and confrontation with French
racism made him aware of the disorientation he experienced as a black man
taught to behave "white," and he responded in part by writing his influential
tract, Black Skin, White Masks (1952). He argued that racist/colonial
culture creates a psychological construct that prevents the black man from
recognizing his subjection to white norms. This alienation of the postcolonial
subject is in particular the result of language: "To speak. . . means above
all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization," Fanon
says. Thus, to speak French or another European language that establishes
the opposition between black and white in moral terms is, for the black
man, to accept one's association with what the white culture defines as
evil. These cultural values become internalized, producing black alienation
from the self.
Linguistic issues thus become
important concerns for postcolonial critics, writers, and readers. The
Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o takes the extreme position that postcolonial
writers should only write in indigenous languages, eschewing the language
of the colonizer; on the other hand, the Nigerian Chinua Achebe has argued
that the colonial languages (in his case English, but also perhaps including
French) are the only common medium of communication across Africa (and
more broadly, across the Third World), and therefore remain an appropriate
choice for literary language. Attitudes about language may also be connected
to attitudes about who can speak to, for, or about postcolonial texts.
For instance, some African writers have suggested that Westerners are disqualified
from criticizing the African novel, insofar as they are the heirs of colonialism.
Others, like Achebe, choose to write in English and include all people
who read English in his audience.
In discussing Rushdie's
Satanic
Verses, Bhabha observes that migrant (postcolonial) peoples must confront
the problem of crossing cultural frontiers; does such crossing "permit
freedom from the essence of the self. . .[or] only change the surface of
the soul, preserving identity under its protean forms" (224) Many postcolonial
texts foreground the problem of cultural migration, as members of the former
colonial empires return to the imperial center (Rushdie, Caribbean writers),
negotiate the transition to other former colonies (Naipaul, Canadians),
or to the United States (Mukherjee's Jasmine.) Another important
marker of postcolonial writing is a concern with history and historical
perspectives. (For example, Walter Rodney's statement "To be colonized
is to be removed from history," or Derek Walcott's "I met History once,
but he ain't recognize me" from "The Schooner
Flight.") Postcolonial
writing seeks to create a new connection to history, one that inverts the
Eurocentric value system and looks at history and society from the perspective
of those voices that have been silenced or ignored by the mainstream. Another
term for postcolonial in this regard is "subaltern," referring to the position
of colonial subjects as permanently subordinate to the rule of colonizers,
in culture even after formal political independence. Postcolonial writing
insists on the importance of history, but a history reconceived and refocused
on previously marginal areas. As such it is connected to other politically
inflected literary and cultural movements, including feminism. Thus we
will see how various writers such as Coetzee, Achebe, and Mahfouz make
use of historical concerns in their writing.
Partial list of sources: Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: Routledge, 1989. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House, 1987. Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988. O. Mannoni, Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964. Tony Smith, Ed. The End of the European Empire: Decolonization after World War II. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1975. Bruce Henricksen, "Chinua Achebe: The Bicultural Novel and the Ethics of Reading." In Sandra Ward Lott, Maureen S.G. Hawkins, and Norman McMillan, Global Perspectives on Teaching Literature. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1993. Pp. 295-310.