Post-colonial theory has been shaped by the works of critics such as Fanon, Said, and Bhabha, who based their theories on the works of Derrida, Lacan and Foucault. In his mainly “psychoanalytical interpretation” of the black/white binary, Fanon establishes certain mandates or a set of axioms such as “the black man wants to be white”, “the white man slaves to reach a human level”, “the white man is sealed in his whiteness”, “the black man in his blackness”; he also establishes two facts: “white men consider themselves superior to black men” and “black men want to prove to the white man, at all costs, the richness of their thought, the equal value of their intellect” (Fanon 3). By basing his analysis on these presumptions, he reveals his belief
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Basing his argument on “Michel Foucault’s notion of a discourse,” Said defines Orientalism/colonialism as “the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient [the colonized]” (Said 1978: 3). The methods used to do this are “making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, […] teaching it, settling it, [and] ruling over it,” which are all achieved by the deployment of discourse (ibid). Said also reveals how “European culture gained in […] identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground itself” (ibid). Thus, he further explains the means of producing an identity through the other. Said is more aware of how the western colonizer sees the eastern colonized, and his worry is the relationship between literary representations and social practice. Said likewise uncovers how European culture picked up in personality by setting itself off against the Orient as a kind of surrogate and even underground itself.
The novel The Grass Is Singing describes the relationship between white and black people in Africa. During the ‘40’s, the black people were treated like animals and not like human beings. They were servants and they worked on the white people’s fields and they were paid almost nothing. The unity between the …show more content…
After he kills Mary he passes by Dick’s room ignoring him because he “was unimportant, since he had been defeated long ago” (GS 206). He does not kill Tony who is his “enemy” because by killing Mary, Moses thinks he has “outwitted” Tony, “[h]is enemy, whom he had outwitted, was asleep” (GS 206).
The last two paragraphs picture the characters’ “breakthrough.” Mary finally discovers her guilt towards Moses (and all black people) while Moses eventually understands the betrayal by Mary (and all whites). Both of them have gone beyond their conditions and they have reached a new level of understanding. The lightning that accompanies Moses’s revenge representing a holly sign that justice is being done. One can say, like ancient tragedies, both characters pay because they have achieved forbidden knowledge: It was black, too dark to see. He waited for the watery glimmer of lightning to illuminate, for the last time, the small house, the veranda, the huddled shape of Mary on the brick, and the dogs who were moving restlessly about her, still whining gently, but uncertainly. It came: a prolonged drench of light, like a wet dawn. And this was his final moment of triumph, a moment so perfect and complete that it took the urgency from thoughts of escape, leaving him indifferent. (GS
Basing his argument on “Michel Foucault’s notion of a discourse,” Said defines Orientalism/colonialism as “the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient [the colonized]” (Said 1978: 3). The methods used to do this are “making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, […] teaching it, settling it, [and] ruling over it,” which are all achieved by the deployment of discourse (ibid). Said also reveals how “European culture gained in […] identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground itself” (ibid). Thus, he further explains the means of producing an identity through the other. Said is more aware of how the western colonizer sees the eastern colonized, and his worry is the relationship between literary representations and social practice. Said likewise uncovers how European culture picked up in personality by setting itself off against the Orient as a kind of surrogate and even underground itself.
The novel The Grass Is Singing describes the relationship between white and black people in Africa. During the ‘40’s, the black people were treated like animals and not like human beings. They were servants and they worked on the white people’s fields and they were paid almost nothing. The unity between the …show more content…
After he kills Mary he passes by Dick’s room ignoring him because he “was unimportant, since he had been defeated long ago” (GS 206). He does not kill Tony who is his “enemy” because by killing Mary, Moses thinks he has “outwitted” Tony, “[h]is enemy, whom he had outwitted, was asleep” (GS 206).
The last two paragraphs picture the characters’ “breakthrough.” Mary finally discovers her guilt towards Moses (and all black people) while Moses eventually understands the betrayal by Mary (and all whites). Both of them have gone beyond their conditions and they have reached a new level of understanding. The lightning that accompanies Moses’s revenge representing a holly sign that justice is being done. One can say, like ancient tragedies, both characters pay because they have achieved forbidden knowledge: It was black, too dark to see. He waited for the watery glimmer of lightning to illuminate, for the last time, the small house, the veranda, the huddled shape of Mary on the brick, and the dogs who were moving restlessly about her, still whining gently, but uncertainly. It came: a prolonged drench of light, like a wet dawn. And this was his final moment of triumph, a moment so perfect and complete that it took the urgency from thoughts of escape, leaving him indifferent. (GS