Postcolonialism

The post-Independence, postcolonial narratives work out the constructs of the nation and analyze its text The dis¬courses or narratives written then and later address the issues of the 'new' nation-mapping of territorial spaces, the re¬grouping of communities, peoples, cultures, languages into a homogenous identity of being Indian and belonging to India. Within this text of national identity runs the sub-text of centrality and marginality. The schemes of the nation include or exclude people,…

By means of arranging intertextual approaches, Rushdie has problematized postmodernist representational systems of the West, specifically, its colonial and imperial discourse. Besides, his novels are interested in the study of Eastern cultural traditions and history, particularly those of India and Pakistan. As a postcolonialist writer, Rushdie attempts to deconstruct the colonial historical account of the colonizer and subvert it through the creation of another explanations and accounts. The…

Travel writers share their experience in visiting other countries by discourse, in their writings, they are mainly concerned with the non-western other. Numerable books are written to describe the orient world, it is usually seen opposed to the western world and the kind of discourse used is mostly colonial in depicting the non-European other. Because discourse itself can be a form of colonization, we shall consider to what extent the use of language by travel writers adheres to this type of…

Another important aspect of the first wave critic’s view of non-oppositional resistance is the idea of colonial ‘hybridity’. Bhabha presents ‘hybridity’ as a reimagining of a term that previously had been used to “imply that different races were different species” and instead argues for a new imagining of ‘hybridity’: a production of ambivalence and the means through which the colonise may defy their subjugation. He proposes that hybridity can therefore be seen as a form of non-oppositional…

In the novel, Santos introduces the fences and forces the llaneros to reject their resistance to civilized changes because “Santos Luzardo arrives in the llanos as the bearer of modernity” (Henighan 31). For example, when Santos is talking to the local plainsmen and they both agree that a fence would not do any harm to the daily life and ultimately each promised to erect a fence: “Y como no podía ser todo para ambos, se convino en que sería nada, y cada cual se comprometió a levantar una cerca…

Colonialism ruled the world for centuries. Colonialism was the driving force of many European countries for a long time. Colonialism is a powerful country in another weak country to build its colonies. This country controls and imposes power and influence on his colony. All the resources and people of the colonized country will belong to the colonial country. Britain was an significant model that use colonialism to maintain their dominance in the world. British controlled India and the America…

Homi Bhabha‘s work transformed the study of colonialism by applying post-structuralist methodologies to colonial texts. He used the term ‗difference‘ for works of many distinct writers. So he explores and extends the relevance of post-structuralism for cultural difference. Bhabha states that the domination of the colonized depends on the assertion of difference: the colonized are inferior to the colonizers. Bhabha also believes that the colonial authority knows that this supposed difference is…

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is considered part of the literary canon. Its status as a part of the canon has been subject to much debate. On one hand, the novel is considered a social critique of European imperialism. On the other, it is deemed a product of racism and dehumanization of the African people. While both of these arguments are perfectly valid, a contemporary view that acknowledges Conrad’s limited view of Africa would recognize that the unsatisfactory depiction of the African…

Mahasweta Devi, a proficient Bengali writer and activist who puts a question mark on the democratic and civilized nation, India. It is imperative to have a clear understanding of “marginalised “in order to understand and appreciate the writings of Mahasweta. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the concept “marginalize” means “to make somebody feel as if they are not important and cannot influence decisions or events; or to put somebody in a powerless position”. Mahasweta empathetically restates…

The Oxford dictionary defines identity as “The characteristics of determining who or what a person or thing is”. The Hebrew word “Galut”, “initially referred to the setting of colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile”, when translated into Greek leads us to the etymology of the term “diaspora”, based on “speiro” (to sow) and the preposition “dia (over)” and in Ancient Greece it referred to “colonization” and “migration.” (Shuval, 2003) Thus, diaspora refers to the…