Postcolonialism

The fact that the literal, corporal flesh of the Indigenous has been used to formulate and make possible the body of then Settler implies that an ethical repossession of that flesh can only occur through the destruction of Settler bodies. Postcolonialism and Indigenism’s decolonial project of land, language, or cultural restoration flinches in the face of the radical ethicality of the genocided object because the “Savage” not only falls outside the Marxian rubric of gains and losses which lays…

Travelling is inevitably a change from routine, a break or perhaps even freeing for some. With the right amount of romantic evocation, attractions and plenty of nature’s sceneries, anything beautiful can undermine the reality when it is written on paper. “A Small Place” by Kincaid seeks to challenge this very notion by revealing a darker side of tourism, a dimension that looks beyond Antigua as a tourist locale. Behind a romanticized narrative of Antigua reveals the challenges of…

While introducing Postcolonial methodologies, Art History; A Critical Introduction by Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk asks a few telling questions. “What would history look like if it were written from the point of view of the periphery? What stories would it tell if, rather than a perspective and values of the centre, the colonized, and the colonised voice narrated and evaluated?” These questions will serve to evaluate David McGee’s painting, The First Whiteman I Ever Saw under the…

If the ‘history from below’ of subaltern studies aims at this rereading ‘against the grain’ of the colonial (and postcolonial) history of India by highlighting the ‘daily forms of resistance’, it suggests above all a ‘redefinition’ of the archive itself: wherever the traditional archive is insufficient (particularly concerning women’s history), recourse to ‘different’ sources in which the ‘subaltern voice’ can be heard is necessary. It is through the alternative that feminist history is…

Abstract The paper makes a postcolonial feminist reading of Jean Rhys’s novel, Wide Sargasso Sea which is a subversion of Charlotte Bronte’s celebrated novel,Jane Eyre.It tries to show how in the novel, Rhys lends voice to Antoinette Cosway, the most silenced character in Jane Eyre and how she foregrounds the importance of creolized gendered subject within the hierarchy of European patriarchy. The paper unravels the way in which the sense of unbelongingness and gendered discrimination…

Colonialism created within the Caribbean a mixture of different cultures, a multiplicity of races, classes, ethnicities and genders. The Caribbean shares a common history and countries would have changed hands from the dominant world powers. It was either from the rulings of the British, Dutch, Spanish or French; some islands were colonized longer than others. It is this rich historical background carved through colonialism that has left its mark on the Caribbean even up to today and is used to…

Julie Otsuka’s novel, The Buddha in the Attic, is a communal narrative of the Japanese Picture Brides who immigrate to the US in the early 1900s. While their narrative is about the immigrant experience, concepts from postcolonial theory can be adapted and are applicable to their story. Throughout the novel, the Picture Brides are shown sharing similar symptoms of that of a colonized subject, embodying what Lois Tyson explains as a “colonized consciousness” (249). According to Tyson, “colonial…

post-structuralist, and postmodernist scholars, which I will demonstrate below. Presented in the book are four major themes: (1) feminist anthropology and ethnography, (2) writing against culture, (3) rituals and symbols, and (4) orientalism and postcolonialism. In this paper, I will only discuss the first two major themes.Feminist Anthropology, Ethnography, and Writing Against CultureAbu-Lughod is a well-known feminist…

In Salman Rushdie’s story Midnight’s Children, offers an overview of events in India immediately following the nation gaining independence in 1947. Within the context of the novel, The Midnight Children are the inheritors of India’s lasting promise, and the evidence of its lasting strength. They each have an unusual power, which not only provides them protection, but more broadly signals India’s ability to rise, in a post-colonial era. It is their magic, that becomes the strongest thread for…

The importance of heritage, culture and tradition, and identity in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow is an acclaimed novel, published in 1983, that takes place in the 1970s. Covering Avey Johnson’s life, Marshall deals with the idea of loss of cultural identity and the importance of it. Through flashbacks and dreams the author presents the source of Avey’s trauma and her past. On this essay, we will summarize Marshall’s life in brief, as well as…