Introduction: BACKGROUND The term “Post-colonialism” refers broadly to the waysin which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity itselfare represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized. By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the control of European countries. At one time, Great Britain, for example, ruled almost 50 percent of the world. DEFINITION • Post-colonialism (postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism. Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst philosophy, film, political science, human geography, sociology, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature. •An era or attitude relating to the period after the settlement of one country by another, or very broadly, after the 1960s, when many colonised countries gained their independence •A cultural, intellectual, political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical experiences and subjectivities of the victims, individuals and nations, of colonial power GOAL · The ultimate goal of post-colonialism is combating the residual effects of colonialism on cultures. It is not simply concerned with salvaging past worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a place of mutual respect. · This section surveys the thoughts of a number of post-colonialism's most prominent thinkers as to how to go about this. · Post-colonialist thinkers recognize that many of the assumptions which underlie the "logic" of colonialism are still active forces today. · Exposing and deconstructing the racist, imperialist nature of these assumptions will remove their power of persuasion and coercion. · Recognizing that they are not simply airy substances but have widespread material consequences for the nature and scale of global inequality makes this project all the more urgent. · A key goal of post-colonial theorists is clearing space for multiple voices. This is especially true of those voices that have been previously silenced by dominant ideologies - subalterns. EXAMPLES OF POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE Some of the major voices and works of postcolonial literature include: Midnight’s Children(1981) by Salman Rushdie Things Fall Apart(1958) by Chinua Achebe The English Patient(1992) by Michael Ondaatje The Wretched of the Earth(1961) by Frantz Fanon A Small Place(1988) by Jamaica Kincaid The House of the Spirits(1982) by Isabelle Allende Waiting for the BarbariansandDisgrace(1990) by J. M. Coetzee Omeros(1990) by Derek Walcott Outside by Eavan Boland Post-Colonial Criticism: Traces construction of colonial stereotypes, identities, internalized racism and alienation in texts. Theorists can take a critical approach that draws on the assumptions of more than one of the preceding schools of cultural criticism (for example, a Marxist-Post Colonial analysis of a text might examine the way that colonized people are economically disadvantaged). (From our study guide): Critical perspectives always ask questions of the text, the type of questions that interest the concerned critic: A Feminist critic asks questions about the treatment of women, the Marxist about distribution of wealth and the Post-colonial about disen-franchised cultures. Power is the common concern here: The received binaries are that women cannot bear power because they are too emotional, the poor cannot handle power because they are too irresponsible, and the other of Postcolonial criticism is … you name it.
POSTCOLONIALISM and Jane Austen Question four above provides an excellent segue to this section. For the Postcolonial other is indeed everywhere absent. What is present in Pride and Prejudice is a class at leisure. They play cards, dance, dine, ride about in carriages, flirt, buy things, but they never really work. Seemingly Antinous has won the much-cherished Penelope, not Odysseus, and the most cynical of the Suitors is still benefiting from the fruits of the better man’s labour. How could they afford this? Whose sweating backs support this? Who is the Postcolonial other? And what is a Manichean binary? Mani (ca 210-275 CE) believed that the cosmos was ruled by equal forces of light and dark, good and evil. The belief in something like this is called Manicheanism. To apply such simplistic binary thinking to the real world is to see the world through Manichean binaries. Each such binary requires an other, the concrete representatives of darkness and evil. During Colonialism the other became those colonized. The colonizing countries of Europe represented goodness, piety, civilization, intelligence, industry, chastity, trustworthiness and were in every way better to the populations of the colonized world, who were innately bad, superstitious, barbarian and savage, stupid, lazy, concupiscent, dishonest and in every way that can be possibly imagined and codified inferior – the white man’s (Darcy’s?) burden indeed! The United Kingdom had lost an empire, America, but at this time was busy reconstructing another centered on India. And slavery was hotly in debate, but still the crime was allowed. So the answer to the central question becomes obvious: Whose sweating backs? Slaves, either by designation or occupation in Jamaica and elsewhere stooping in cane fields with the overseer’s whip on their backs, for such injustice could only be violently perpetuated, paid the real price for it all the pretty things the pretty people in Pride and Prejudice consumed with so much delight and elegance. 1. So investigate this world with critical eyes. You are Odysseus, apparently a beggar, despised and victimized, but watching, evaluating, judging. 2. Or you might see the Postcolonial other in the criminalization of Wickham. He certainly has most of the other’s supposed weaknesses, and perhaps Darcy has the bearing of an overseer. 3. Or you could write a pastiche (that is, insert a scene written in imitation of Austen) or introduce lines in an already-written scene, exposing thereby the crimes of Austen’s parasitical world. This is something akin to what Patricia Rozema did in her movie adaptation of another Austen novel, MansfieldPark.
A Further Note on POSTCOLONIALISM and its METHOD
In denying any one school of thought or group perspective any stranglehold on the truth many mistakes of judgement are made on the postmodern perspective, method or play. Here are some misjudgements often made: 1. Postmodernism is completely relativistic, denying any possibility of getting at the truth of things. * While truth is a word that postmodern critics may avoid like the plague, giving preference to the word reality, their method is to show truth’s plural nature or complexity, not non-existence – that is to say, it’s pluralism, not nihilism. 2. Postmodernism wishes to chip it all away, “centuries of knowledge.” * While postmodernist critics are historically vigorous, discounting much received knowledge, knowledge with greater validity replaces it 3. There is no three. * There is only play.
BACKGROUND
The term “Post-colonialism” refers broadly to the waysin which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity itselfare represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized. By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the control of European countries. At one time, Great Britain, for example, ruled almost 50 percent of the world.
DEFINITION
• Post-colonialism (postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism. Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst philosophy, film, political science, human geography, sociology, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.
•An era or attitude relating to the period after the settlement of one country by another, or very broadly, after the 1960s, when many colonised countries gained their independence
•A cultural, intellectual, political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical experiences and subjectivities of the victims, individuals and nations, of colonial power
GOAL
· The ultimate goal of post-colonialism is combating the residual effects of colonialism on cultures. It is not simply concerned with salvaging past worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a place of mutual respect.
· This section surveys the thoughts of a number of post-colonialism's most prominent thinkers as to how to go about this.
· Post-colonialist thinkers recognize that many of the assumptions which underlie the "logic" of colonialism are still active forces today.
· Exposing and deconstructing the racist, imperialist nature of these assumptions will remove their power of persuasion and coercion.
· Recognizing that they are not simply airy substances but have widespread material consequences for the nature and scale of global inequality makes this project all the more urgent.
· A key goal of post-colonial theorists is clearing space for multiple voices. This is especially true of those voices that have been previously silenced by dominant ideologies - subalterns.
EXAMPLES OF POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE
Some of the major voices and works of postcolonial literature include:
Midnight’s Children(1981) by Salman Rushdie
Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe
The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje
The Wretched of the Earth (1961) by Frantz Fanon
A Small Place (1988) by Jamaica Kincaid
The House of the Spirits (1982) by Isabelle Allende
Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace (1990) by J. M. Coetzee
Omeros (1990) by Derek Walcott
Outside by Eavan Boland
Post-Colonial Criticism: Traces construction of colonial stereotypes, identities, internalized racism and alienation in texts.
Theorists can take a critical approach that draws on the assumptions of more than one of the preceding schools of cultural criticism (for example, a Marxist-Post Colonial analysis of a text might examine the way that colonized people are economically disadvantaged).
(From our study guide):
Critical perspectives always ask questions of the text, the type of questions that interest the concerned critic: A Feminist critic asks questions about the treatment of women, the Marxist about distribution of wealth and the Post-colonial about disen-franchised cultures. Power is the common concern here: The received binaries are that women cannot bear power because they are too emotional, the poor cannot handle power because they are too irresponsible, and the other of Postcolonial criticism is … you name it.
POSTCOLONIALISM and Jane Austen
Question four above provides an excellent segue to this section. For the Postcolonial other is indeed everywhere absent.
What is present in Pride and Prejudice is a class at leisure. They play cards, dance, dine, ride about in carriages, flirt, buy things, but they never really work. Seemingly Antinous has won the much-cherished Penelope, not Odysseus, and the most cynical of the Suitors is still benefiting from the fruits of the better man’s labour.
How could they afford this? Whose sweating backs support this?
Who is the Postcolonial other? And what is a Manichean binary?
Mani (ca 210-275 CE) believed that the cosmos was ruled by equal forces of light and dark, good and evil. The belief in something like this is called Manicheanism. To apply such simplistic binary thinking to the real world is to see the world through Manichean binaries.
Each such binary requires an other, the concrete representatives of darkness and evil. During Colonialism the other became those colonized. The colonizing countries of Europe represented goodness, piety, civilization, intelligence, industry, chastity, trustworthiness and were in every way better to the populations of the colonized world, who were innately bad, superstitious, barbarian and savage, stupid, lazy, concupiscent, dishonest and in every way that can be possibly imagined and codified inferior – the white man’s (Darcy’s?) burden indeed!
The United Kingdom had lost an empire, America, but at this time was busy reconstructing another centered on India.
And slavery was hotly in debate, but still the crime was allowed.
So the answer to the central question becomes obvious: Whose sweating backs?
Slaves, either by designation or occupation in Jamaica and elsewhere stooping in cane fields with the overseer’s whip on their backs, for such injustice could only be violently perpetuated, paid the real price for it all the pretty things the pretty people in Pride and Prejudice consumed with so much delight and elegance.
1. So investigate this world with critical eyes. You are Odysseus, apparently a beggar, despised and victimized, but watching, evaluating, judging.
2. Or you might see the Postcolonial other in the criminalization of Wickham. He certainly has most of the other’s supposed weaknesses, and perhaps Darcy has the bearing of an overseer.
3. Or you could write a pastiche (that is, insert a scene written in imitation of Austen) or introduce lines in an already-written scene, exposing thereby the crimes of Austen’s parasitical world. This is something akin to what Patricia Rozema did in her movie adaptation of another Austen novel, Mansfield Park.
A Further Note on POSTCOLONIALISM and its METHOD
In denying any one school of thought or group perspective any stranglehold on the truth many mistakes of judgement are made on the postmodern perspective, method or play. Here are some misjudgements often made:
1. Postmodernism is completely relativistic, denying any possibility of getting at the truth of things.
* While truth is a word that postmodern critics may avoid like the plague, giving preference to the word reality, their method is to show truth’s plural nature or complexity, not non-existence – that is to say, it’s pluralism, not nihilism.
2. Postmodernism wishes to chip it all away, “centuries of knowledge.” * While postmodernist critics are historically vigorous, discounting much received knowledge, knowledge with greater validity replaces it
3. There is no three.
* There is only play.
Bibliography
http://www.enotes.com/postcolonialism
http://robertjcyoung.com/G41.2900_073.pdf
http://www.photoinsight.org/theory/theory.pdf
http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/postcol.php