Postcolonial Literary Theory

What is Colonialism?
The political, social,
economic, and
cultural domination of
a territory and its
people by a foreign
power

What Happened during

Colonialism?
During the colonial era
white Europeans
ventured into the socalled underdeveloped
countries in Africa and
Asia and dominated a lot
of geographical spaces
there.

Impact of Colonialism
White Europeans
subjugated the
natives, eroded the
natives cultures and
languages, plundered
the natives wealth
and established their
orders based on
settlers supremacy.

How do Colonial Powers Justify

their Actions?

Justifying Colonialism

The colonized are

savages in need of
education and
rehabilitation

Justifying Colonialism
The culture of the
colonized is not up to
the standard of the
colonizer, and its the
moral duty of the
colonizer to do
something about
polishing it.

Justifying Colonialism
The colonized nation
is unable to manage
and run itself properly,
and thus it needs the
wisdom and expertise
of the colonizer.

Justifying Colonialism
The colonized nation
embraces a set of
heathen religious
beliefs, and
consequently, it is
Gods given duty of
the colonizer to bring
those stray people to
the right path.

How did the Colonists Stay in

Power?

OPPRESSION

Oppressions
Oppression is a basic
ingredient of colonialism.
There is no denying it that
oppression dehumanizes both
the oppressor and the
oppressed. Thus in the
thickness of colonialism,
national movements, and most
of them were radical and
violent in their approaches,
emerged to encounter the
aggression of colonialism.

Response to Oppression
Thus in the thickness
of colonialism,
national movements,
and most of them
were radical and
violent in their
approaches, emerged
to encounter the
aggression of
colonialism.

What was the Impact of

Colonialism?

Impact of Colonialism

The total or partial erosion of the colonized culture.

Impact of Colonialism
The total rejection by
some elements
among the colonized
of everything western
as a form of reaction
and protest against
the colonizer.

Impact of Colonialism
The categorization of
the world into ranks,
such as first world,
second world, the
West and the rest
with all the
subsequent
stereotyping and
prototyping that
follows.

Impact of Colonialism
The emergence of
different forms of
fundamentalism that
aim at purifying their
local cultures from the
residues of the
colonial past

Impact of Colonialism
The emergence of
bourgeoisie classes
in the colonies,
modeling
themselves after
their masters, who
endeavor to
maintain their status
quo by getting
closer to Western
culture

Impact of Colonialism

The emergence of
societies with a lot of
contradictions and
split loyalties.

So What is Postcolonialism?
To put it simply,
postcolonialism
examines what
happens socially,
economically,
politically, and
culturally to former
colonies once they
become
independent.

What are the Assumptions of Postcolonialism?

Cultural Relativism
This means that the
colonialists
defilement of culture
is socially, morally
and politically
incorrect.

Ambivalence towards Authority

This ambivalence is
born out of the longterm struggle and
conflict between
native and settler.

Alienation
Colonialism and
Postcolonialism leads
to the alienation of the
native in his own land.
This is described as a
traumatic experience
that erodes the
individuals identity.

Resurrecting Culture
Among the many
challenges facing
postcolonial writers
are the attempt to
both resurrect their
culture and to combat
the preconceptions
about their culture.

So What is Postcolonial Literary

Theory?
Postcolonial literary
theory involves the
analysis of literary
texts produced in
countries and cultures
that have come under
the control of
European colonial
powers at some point
in their history.

So What is Postcolonial Literary

Theory?
Alternatively, it
can refer to the
analysis of texts
written about
colonized places
by writers hailing
from the
colonizing
culture.

What does Postcolonial

Theory Focus On?

Cultural Distortion

The way in which

literature by the
colonizing culture
distorts the
experience and
realities, and
inscribes the
inferiority, of the
colonized people.

Literature of the Colonized

On literature by
colonized peoples
which attempts to
articulate their
identity and reclaim
their past in the face
of that past's
inevitable otherness.

Impact on the Colonizers

It can also deal with

the way in which
literature in
colonizing countries
appropriates the
language, images,
scenes, traditions
and so forth of
colonized countries.

Mixing of Cultures
This mixing of
cultures is another
principal theme in
postcolonial fiction,
and it is often
developed in the
broader context of
establishing identity.

Important Postcolonial Terms

Colonialism
A policy by which a
nation establishes,
maintains, and/or
extends control over
foreign territory, its
peoples, and its
resources.

Cultural Imperialism
The intellectual
subjugation and
degradation of
colonized peoples
through promoting the
colonizers culture at
the expense of the
culture of the
colonized.

Decolonization
The process of
changing from a
colonized territory to
an independent
nation, occurring in
social and cultural
ways as well as in
political and economic
ones.

Double Consciousness
A term, coined by
W.E.B. Du Bois, that
refers the sense that
colonized peoples
have of always
looking at themselves
through the eyes of
their colonizers.

Eurocentrism
The belief that
European culture,
history, and values
are universal,
normative, and/or
superior.

Hybridity
The mingling of
cultural signs and
practices from the
colonizing and the
colonized cultures
This cross-fertilization
of cultures, can be
seen as positive,
enriching, and
dynamic, as well as
oppressive.

The Other
Any person or group
constructed as
foreign/alien -- such
constructions most
often serve to create
the in-group (race,
nation) through
contrast and to give it
a positive valuation.

Racism
The institutionalized
assignment of values
to real or imagined
differences between
people, in order to
justify aggression and
protect privilege.

Subaltern
A term, coined by
postcolonial critic
Gayatri Spivak, that
describes dominated,
subordinated and
marginalized groups
especially those who
are doubly
oppressed, such as
colonized women.

Important
Figures in
Postcolonial
Literary
Theory

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)

Most Important Works:
Black Skin, White
Masks
The Wretched of the
Earth

Edward Said (1935-2003)

Most Important Works:
Orientalism
Culture and
Imperialism

Homi Bhabha (1949-present)

In his essay
"Postcolonial Criticism"
(1992), Bhabha has
shown how certain
cultures (mis)represent
other cultures, thereby
extending their political
and social domination in
the modern world order.

Gayatri Spivak (1942-present)

In her article "Can the
Subaltern Speak?
Spivak reveals the
tendency of
institutional and
cultural practices to
exclude and
marginalize the
subaltern, especially
subaltern women.

Important
Colonial and
Postcolonial
Novelists

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

Defoe's famous novel
Robinson Crusoe
(1719), tells of a
man's shipwreck on a
desert island and his
subsequent
adventures.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

In his novella, Heart
of Darkness, tells the
story of a man named
Marlow who details a
visit he took up the
Congo River to
investigate the work
of Kurtz, a Belgian
trader in ivory in the
Congo Free State.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970)
In his novel, A Passage
to India, Forster tells
the story of a British
woman who accuses
an Indian doctor of
sexually assaulting her.
The ensuing court trial
increases the racial
tension between the
Indians and the British
and foreshadows the
end of the British Raj.

Salman Rushdie (1947-present)

Important Works:
Midnight's Children
The Satanic Verses
The Moor's Last
Sigh
Shalimar the Clown

V. S. Naipaul (1932-present)
Important Works
The Mystic Masseur
A House for Mr.
Biswas
The Mimic Men
A Bend in the River
A Bend in the River

Chinua Achebe (1930-present)

Important Works
Things Fall Apart
Arrow of God
A Man of the People
Anthills of the
Savannah

Zadie Smith (1975-present)

Important Works
White Teeth
The Autograph Man
On Beauty

Arundhati Roy
Important Works
The God of Small
Things
The Greater Common
Good
The Algebra of Infinite
Justice

Questions Postcolonial Critics

Ask about Literature

Postcolonial Questions

How did the

experience of
colonization affect
the colonizers and
the colonized in the
story?

Postcolonial Questions

How are the

colonialists and their
cohorts presented in
the narratives? Are
they tolerant,
oppressive, violent,
charitable, cute,
white, brave,
religious, hypocrites,
etc?

Postcolonial Questions

Are there
stereotypes
presented in the
narratives? For
example are the
local inhabitants
seen as savages,
cannibals,
polygamous, dirty,
violent, irrational,
etc.?

Postcolonial Questions

What are the forms of resistance against

colonial control?

Postcolonial Questions

What were the

emergent forms of
postcolonial identity
after the departure
of the colonizers?

Postcolonial Questions

Do the narratives
depict natives
versus settlers, vice
versa? How?

Postcolonial Questions

Have new forms of

imperialism replaced
colonization in this
story?

Postcolonial Questions

What does the

narrative reveal
about the
problematics of
postcolonial identity,
including such
issues as double
consciousness and
hybridity?

Postcolonial Questions

What does the text

reveal about the
politics and/or
psychology of anticolonialist
resistance?

 Are there stereotypes

presented in the
narratives? For
example are the local
inhabitants seen as
savages, cannibals,
polygamous, dirty,
violent, irrational,
etc.?

 How are the

colonialists and their
cohorts presented in
the narratives? Are
they tolerant,
oppressive, violent,
charitable, cute,
white, brave,
religious, hypocrites,
etc?

Useful Links

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/

http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/colonial2.html

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri

Thanks for Paying Attention!