Key Terms of Postcolonial Literature

Prepared by : Komal ShahedapuriRoll No : 14Paper – 11 : The Postcolonial LiteratureM.A (English) : Sem -3Enrollment No: 2069108420170027Batch : 2016-18Email ID : komaltara1311@gmail.comSubmitted to : Smt .S. B Gardi ,

Department of English’M.K Bhavnagar University

What is the Postcolonial Literature ?

• Postcolonial literature is the literature of countries that were colonized , mainly by European countries. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people. In postcolonial theory, voice given to marginal identities or characters who are on the periphery in the early narration or in history, but through the retelling of history from post colonial perspective, these identities come in the centre.

Key Terms of Postcolonial Literature

• De-colonialism

• Commonwealth Literature

• Postcolonial Feminism

• Racism

• Orientalism

• Hybridity

De-Colonization • “Decolonization is the process of revealing and

dismantling colonist power in all its forms, this includes dismantling the hidden aspects of those institution and cultural forces that had maintained the colonialist power and that remained even after political independence” .

• It is not only “removal of the domination of non-Indigenous forces” but also it refers to “decolonizes of mind “ from colonizer's ideas.

• Examples- Black Skin White Mask by Frantz Fanon

• Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature by Kenyan novelist and post-colonial theorist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

Commonwealth Literature

What is Commonwealth ?

• Commonwealth means British nation which is a political community.

• The Commonwealth is an Intergovernmental organizational 54 nations which were formally part of British Empire.

• The original phrase “the commonwealth” or “the common weal” comes from the old meaning of “wealth” which is “well-being”. The term literary meant “common well being”.

What is the Commonwealth Literature?

Commonwealth is associated with those which were ruled by British, known as Commonwealth Countries and the literature get nearer out from these are known as Commonwealth Literature.

“A body of writing created in the English language by persons who are themselves white Britons or Irish or citizens of United states of America”

Commonwealth writers

Salman Rushdie, R. K. Narayan, Nayantara Sahgal and Ruth Prawer JhabvalaJapanese Nobel Kazuo Ishiguro.

Postcolonial Feminism

• “If you have acquired real knowledge, than give too no place in your heart to ‘memsahib’ like behaviour. That is not becoming in a Bengali house-wife, how an educated woman can do house-work thoughtfully and systematically in a way unknown to an ignorant, uneducated woman . And if God had not appointed us to this place in the home, how a place this world would be.

- Chatterji,1989)

• Colonialism operates differently for men and women. It also known as Double Colonialism

• Ex– Gayatri Spivak’s“Can Subaltern Speak?”

• "The subaltern cannot speak there is no virtue in global laundry lists with 'woman' as a pious item. Representation has not withered away the female intellectual has a circumscribed task which she must not disown with a flourish“.

- Gayatri Spivak

Racism• Racism is prejudice, discrimination, antagonism

directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

• Examples- ‘The Bluest eyes’ by Toni Morrison and ‘Things Fall Apart’ (African Trilogy) by Chinua Achebe

• Movie ‘Queen’ by Vikas Bahl and ‘English Vinglish’ by Guari Shinde

• Are human beings essentially the same or different ?

• Is difference defined primarily by racial attributes?

• Binary opposition of the society also proves that there are some differences in the human-beings.

Orientalism• “Orientalism” is a way of seeing that imagines ,

emphasizes , exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab people and cultures as compared to that of Europe and U.S it often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic , backward , uncivilized , and at times , dangerous.

• Edward Said’s essay ‘Orientalism’ is a best example to know about it in which it is said that

• Orientalism offered Middle Eastern studies, transforming the way practitioners of the discipline describe and examine the Middle East.

• Hybridity is a creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization.

• The term refers to the Cross- breeding of two separate species by grafting to a form third , ‘hybrid species’. ’Hybridity’ is journey from biological to cultural discussions.

• It is the mixture of two cultures, races or religions. It can be linguistic, cultural, political ,racial, social and religious. It’s not necessarily peaceful mixture.

• Example- Kurta with Jeans and many more like in food, festivals, marriage etc.