Postcolonial is a term used for an era when colonies achieved freedom from European colonization. The term post colonialism concerns the effects of colonialism on cultures and communities. Though there was a political change, many nations got independence and they are no more colonies, but culturally and economically there appeared many dilemma and crises, they were still in confusion about their culture and identity. The ethnic sectors' struggle is for independence or to be recognized as equal to each other. Colonial powers created societies in their colonies that are heterogeneous by dividing them ethnically. Inter ethnic rivalry exposed, specifically, in former British colonies in general, the postcolonial atmosphere and situation was overwhelmed
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Within this tripartite structure that allows Ralph to negotiate back and forth across spatial and temporal zones of his life, he tries to put in writing his memoir chronicling the years of his birth and childhood in Isabella, a recently independent but fictive island nation of the Caribbean, his education, marriage, political career down to his present state of being a reclusive exile. In The Mimic Men the protagonist is portrayed as a memoir writer, composes his bewildered childhood on the island Isabella and his unhappy marriage to a white woman in his premature autobiography. However, Ralph’s father married the daughter of the owners of the Bella Bottling Works, the island’s local agents for Coca Cola. Ralph is more enthusiastic to identify himself with his mother’s family. “They were among the richest in the island and belonged to that small group known as ‘Isabella millionaires’. (89) Out of the multi-cultures, he feels abandoned personally, culturally, racially, and has felt isolated at the end of the empty world and is driven by restlessness and the need for a new idea of self through the act of writing. This paper examines Ralph’s negotiation of shifting identities, his rapid disintegration when living in the solid city, London, and his painful submission to the diasporic at the …show more content…
Ralph endows himself with a Western name which is unimportant but useful; his Indian identity is denied and he would rather be anonymous. As a matter of fact, the Western name is hollow because he cannot possess a Western identity simply by possessing a Western name. Identifying with the Western name and dismantling his Indian name symbolize the loss of Ralph’s original culture. Ralph Singh was unable to experience himself as normal with others or at home in the world. Instead Ralph is represented as unhoused and in-between spaces. The idea of space becomes increasingly representative of the divided self as it is manifested through named spaces and vaguely defined spaces. Unable to feel at home anywhere Ralph opts to live increasingly within the space of his
Within this tripartite structure that allows Ralph to negotiate back and forth across spatial and temporal zones of his life, he tries to put in writing his memoir chronicling the years of his birth and childhood in Isabella, a recently independent but fictive island nation of the Caribbean, his education, marriage, political career down to his present state of being a reclusive exile. In The Mimic Men the protagonist is portrayed as a memoir writer, composes his bewildered childhood on the island Isabella and his unhappy marriage to a white woman in his premature autobiography. However, Ralph’s father married the daughter of the owners of the Bella Bottling Works, the island’s local agents for Coca Cola. Ralph is more enthusiastic to identify himself with his mother’s family. “They were among the richest in the island and belonged to that small group known as ‘Isabella millionaires’. (89) Out of the multi-cultures, he feels abandoned personally, culturally, racially, and has felt isolated at the end of the empty world and is driven by restlessness and the need for a new idea of self through the act of writing. This paper examines Ralph’s negotiation of shifting identities, his rapid disintegration when living in the solid city, London, and his painful submission to the diasporic at the …show more content…
Ralph endows himself with a Western name which is unimportant but useful; his Indian identity is denied and he would rather be anonymous. As a matter of fact, the Western name is hollow because he cannot possess a Western identity simply by possessing a Western name. Identifying with the Western name and dismantling his Indian name symbolize the loss of Ralph’s original culture. Ralph Singh was unable to experience himself as normal with others or at home in the world. Instead Ralph is represented as unhoused and in-between spaces. The idea of space becomes increasingly representative of the divided self as it is manifested through named spaces and vaguely defined spaces. Unable to feel at home anywhere Ralph opts to live increasingly within the space of his