Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H.

Mihoubi

Postcolonial Criticism “Ethnic Studies”

The Central ideas in Postcolonial literature Postcolonial has many

common motifs and themes like ‘cultural dominance’ and Racism’, ‘quest for
identity’, ‘racial discrimination’, ‘inequality’, ‘hybridity’ along with some
peculiar presentation styles. Most of the postcolonial writers reflected and
demonstrated many thematic concepts which are quite connected with both
‘colonizer’ and ‘colonized’. White Europeans continually accentuated on racial
discrimination for their superiority over colonized. It was most evident in South
Africa that the apartheid was incorporated in national laws. Among the most
notable acts of this kind were ‘The Groups Areas Act’, ‘Prohibition of Mixed
Marriages Act’, ‘Immorality Act’, ‘The Population Registration Act’, ‘Bantu
Authorities Act’, and ‘The Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents
Act. Each of these acts were limiting, restricting and discriminating colonized
from the ruling White.

Both the writers Nadine Gordimer and Coetzee in their fiction showed
how apartheid destroyed South Africa in many ways as emotionally, morally
and economically. In postcolonial context, language played crucial role in
control and subjugation of colonized people. Colonizers often imposed their
language upon their subjects in order to control them. So most postcolonial
writers address the issues in many ways by mixing the local language with
imposed language, the result is a hybrid one that underscores the broken nature
of the colonized mind

The term ‘Postcolonialism’ is widely refers to the representation of race,

ethnicity, culture and human identity in the modern era, mostly after many
colonised countries got their independence. It is connected with imperialism

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

from the moment of colonization until 21st century; “The word imperialism
derives from the Latin imperium, which has numerous meanings including
power, authority, command, dominion, realm, and empire” (Habib 737). It
describes many interactions between ‘coloniser’ and ‘colonised.’ Majority of the
world was under the control of European countries. Especially the British
Empire consisted of “more than a quarter of all the territory on the surface of the
earth: one in four people was a subject of Queen Victoria.”

It is the literature and the art produced in the countries such as India, Sri
Lanka, Nigeria, Senegal and Australia after their independence, called as
Postcolonial literature. Edward Said’s prominent book Orientalism is an
assessment of Western representation of the Eastern culture under the label
‘Postcolonial Studies’. Canada and Australia are often treated as ‘settler’
countries as they are part of British Commonwealth of Nations. Most famous
postcolonial writers like Rushdie, Achebe, Ondaatje, Fanon, Derek Walcott, J.
M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, Isabelle Illende, and Eavan Boland etc. Most of
their literary works were representing interrelations between the coloniser and
the colonised, such as Things Fall Apart (1958), Midnight Children (1981), The
Waiting for the Barbarians (1990), Disgrace (1990) and English Patient (1992)
etc. Spread of Postcolonialism There is a single largest defining factor in
outlining world politics in the second half of 20th century i.e. Britain’s loss of
empire at the outset of World War II.

After that Britain lost most of its formal colonies in Africa, the
Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, South-East Asia and the far East
including Persian Gulf etc., In the 17th century, Britain had gained control over
many parts of North America, Canada and Caribbean Islands along with slaves
from Africa and market development in India. Nevertheless, Britain viewed its
imperialistic expansion as a moral responsibility and exerting greater control
over the countries like India, Africa and China. A famous British writer Kipling

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

referred this responsibility, ‘the white man’s burden’ of civilizing the people
who were obviously incapable of self-governing.

Many colonised countries such as India, Pakistan, Ireland, Kenya,

Nigeria and so on started writing a type of literature reflecting and representing
their own experiences while and after colonization. Frantz Fanon laid essential
theoretical foundation for the future colonial theories in his famous book The
Wretched of the Earth (1092). He argues that a new world can come into being
only with a violent revolution by African farmers. In another instant, he used his
personal experiences in his book Black Skin, White Mask (1952) to show
relationship between colonized and colonizer in terms of psychology in
observing emotional damage to both colonized and colonizer.

His work anticipated Said’s Orientalism. Said’s Orientalism critiques

Western representation of the East as irrational, antiwestern, primitive and
dishonest. According to Said, Orientalism is an ideology born of the colonizers’
desire to know their subjects to control them in a better manner. Said argues,
“To write about the Arab Oriental world…is to write with the authority of a
nation…with the unquestioning certainty of absolute truth backed by absolute
force.” Another postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak whose
writings focused on the intersections of gender, ethnicity of postcolonial
subjects viewed her job as a postcolonial critic. Bhabha illustrates his
“conception of 'cultural difference' in terms of what he describes as 'the
language metaphor', which represents cultures in semiotic terms as functioning
and assigning value in the same way that systems of language provide meaning”
(Gilbert, 124).

Homi Bhabha’s theory and criticism investigates ideas of ‘Hybridity’ and

‘Ambivalence’ to construct national and cultural identities. “Hybridity, perhaps
the key concept throughout Bhabha’s career in this respect, obviously depends
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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

upon a presumption of the existence of its opposite for its force” (Gilbert, 128).
In his famous books Nation and Narration (1990) and The Location of Culture
(1994) used psychoanalysis and semiotics to explores the ‘spaces’ created by
dominant social formations in the works of Morrison, Gordimer etc.

Postcolonial Authors Some of the most prominent authors of Postcolonial

literatures are Chinua Achebe, J. M. Coetzee, Franz Fanon, Michael Ondaatje,
Salman Rushdie, Li-Young Li, Derek Walcott and Jamaica Kincaid,, Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak etc. “The four names appear again and again as thinkers
who have shaped postcolonial theory: Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha
and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak” (Innes, 5). Though all these writers had
different lands, nationalities and social backgrounds, they could all create their
own distinction in producing wonderful works of literature of which many
would certainly come under the label ‘Postcolonial literature. Chinua Achebe of
Nigeria with his first novel, The Things Fall Apart (1958) writes about the
tensions between the people and the values of the native Igbo community and
the Christian colonizers.

He worked in many universities in Nigeria and America for more than

three decades. In addition to his fictional writings, he wrote some non-fiction
collection of essays Home and Exile (2000). Achebe got the Man Booker
International Prize in 2007 for his literary merit so as J. M. Coetzee who was
apartheid writer. J. M. Coetzee developed vigorous anti-imperialist attitudes as a
white writer living in South Africa for the apartheid. In most of his novels, he
represented his own alienation from his fellow Africans. The Life and Times of
Michael K is an award winning novel set in Cape Town with a protagonist
Michael K who is a gardener. His novels Research Journal of English Language
and Literature are allegorical and accentuating the everlasting nature of human
vindictiveness. Coetzee received his second Booker Prize for his Disgrace
(1999).

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

Though he got numerous awards, the highest one is Nobel Prize in

literature in 2003. Another notable writer in Postcolonial literature, Frantz Fanon
who was interested in the emotional effects of colonization and racism on
blacks, his most known work The Wretched of the Earth in 1961 and become a
leading critic of colonial power and influenced aggressive revolution. Moreover
he had significant influence on many thinkers such as Homi Bhabha, Jean Paul
Sartre, and Edward Said. Edward “ Said is concerned with the ways in which
knowledge is governed and owned by Europeans to reinforce power, and to
exclude or dismiss the knowledge which natives might claim to have” (Innes, 9).
Michael Ondaatje is a novelist, critic, poet born in Sri Lanka and moved to
London with his mother.

He is best known for his Booker Prize winning novel the English Patient
which features the interactions of characters of various nationalities during the
last days of WWII. Salman Rushdie is an Indian postcolonial writer who wanted
to become a writer from his childhood. His most successful and Booker Prize
winning novel is Midnight’s Children which got him international reputation.
By sketching Indian history from 1910 to 1976 he weaved personal experiences
with history. His The Satanic Verses got banned and caused a Muslims protest
throughout the world termed the book blasphemous. He had to face troubles in
the name of ‘fatwa’ for the novel The Satanic Verses. In most of his writings,
Rushdie explores the intersections of history, religion, culture and identity. On
par with male writers in postcolonial literature, there are notable female writers
such as Jamaica Kincaid, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak have contributed in a
greater extent. Kincaid’s novel A Small Place describes about Antigua.

Mostly she wrote about women’s experiences with other women in

addition to the effects of patriarchy and colonialism women’s own image.
Another female writer and one of the prominent theorists of postcolonial literary
theory is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who translated Derrida’s Of

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

Grammatology in to English along with its preface. She gave numerous

interviews on her critical opinions about postcolonial literature. Postcolonialism
literature in English One of the most influential novels of Postcolonialism is
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, explores the interaction between
traditional African society and British colonizers. In this novel the character
Okonkwo struggles to understand and cope up with the changes got from
Christianity and British control. His novel examines various situations occurred
after the postindependence fictional West African village. Achebe conveyed
through his novels how the British legacies continue to weaken possibility of
uniting the country.

South African novelist and Booker Prize winner J. M. Coetzee explores

the themes of crime, revenge, land rights and racial justice post-apartheid South
Africa. The plot of the novel strongly connected with the character David Lurie
was expelled from for sexual harassment. Salman Rushdie’s most popular novel
Midnight’s Children intertwines personal events into the history of India. The
narrator in the novel is Saleem Sinai. Author used many devices like Magic
Realism, Hindu story telling etc. In addition Michael Ondaatje’s The English
Patient surveys lots of postcolonial themes such as intersections between
national and individual identity which caused in consciousness.

It is set in a country house in Florence and describes the lives of a young

woman and three men from various countries including a badly burnt English
patient dying in a room. Some significant writers in postcolonial literature are
like Ngugu wa Thiongo, Edwidge Danticat Leslie Marmon Silko, Jamaica
Kincaid including Li-Young Lee contributed considerably. Ngugi’s
Decolonizing the Mind is a kind of multiple type genre and it describes various
traditions of his people. It also presents how British education system tried to
destroy the local culture and its language Gikuyu. Silko in his novel Ceremony
celebrates various traditions and myths of the Laguna Pueblo and influence of

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

white relation on local culture. It also shows how Native Americans hold a
special position in postcolonial discourse.

In addition to many male postcolonial writers whose works have been

examined just Research Journal of English Language and Literature before,
there are some renowned female novelists also contributed, especially Jamaica
Kincaid with her famous novel Small Place is one of the postcolonial discourse
with which she draws on her personal experience of living in British colony of
Antigua. Kincaid expresses her contempt for the British ways for colonized. In
this novel she focuses on the English Educational system which attempted to
turn natives into English. Further she points out that the native people like to
adopt the worst of foreign culture and pay no attention to the best.1

Another novelist Edwidge Danticat from Haiti is the writer of the novel
Breath, Eyes, Memory. Her novel presents many themes like migration,
sexuality, gender and history as they are the most common postcolonial themes.
In this novel the protagonist Sophie struggles to get an identity out of desperate
cultures and languages such as French, English to adapt to American ways after
she reaches Brooklyn, New York. Danticat become a leading female voice of
postcolonial literature. The Central ideas in Postcolonial literature Postcolonial
has many common motifs and themes like ‘cultural dominance’ and Racism’,
‘quest for identity’, ‘racial discrimination’, ‘inequality’, ‘hybridity’ along with
some peculiar presentation styles. Most of the postcolonial writers reflected and
demonstrated many thematic concepts which are quite connected with both
‘colonizer’ and ‘colonized’.

White Europeans continually accentuated on racial discrimination for

their superiority over colonized. It was most evident in South Africa that the
apartheid was incorporated in national laws. Among the most notable acts of this
kind were ‘The Groups Areas Act’, ‘Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act’,

7
Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

‘Immorality Act’, ‘The Population Registration Act’, ‘Bantu Authorities Act’,

and ‘The Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act. Each of these
acts were limiting, restricting and discriminating colonized from the ruling
White. Both the writers Nadine Gordimer and Coetzee in their fiction showed
how apartheid destroyed South Africa in many ways as emotionally, morally
and economically.

In postcolonial context, language played crucial role in control and

subjugation of colonized people. Colonizers often imposed their language upon
their subjects in order to control them. So most postcolonial writers address the
issues in many ways by mixing the local language with imposed language, the
result is a hybrid one that underscores the broken nature of the colonized mind.

sometimes referred to as “Minority Studies,” has an obvious historical

relationship with “Postcolonial Criticism” in that Euro-American imperialism
and colonization in the last four centuries, whether external (empire) or internal
(slavery) has been directed at recognizable ethnic groups: African and African-
American, Chinese, the subaltern peoples of India, Irish, Latino, Native
American, and Philipino, among others. “Ethnic Studies” concerns itself
generally with art and literature produced by identifiable ethnic groups either
marginalized or in a subordinate position to a dominant culture. “Postcolonial
Criticism” investigates the relationships between colonizers and colonized in the
period postcolonization.

Though the two fields are increasingly finding points of intersection—the

work of bell hooks, for example—and are both activist intellectual enterprises,
“Ethnic Studies and “Postcolonial Criticism” have significant differences in

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

their history and ideas. “Ethnic Studies” has had a considerable impact on
literary studies in the United States and Britain. In W.E.B. Dubois, we find an
early attempt to theorize the position of AfricanAmericans within dominant
white culture through his concept of “double consciousness,” a dual identity
including both “American” and “Negro.”

Dubois and theorists after him seek an understanding of how that double
experience both creates identity and reveals itself in culture. Afro-Caribbean and
African writers—Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe—have made
significant early contributions to the theory and practice of ethnic criticism that
explores the traditions, sometimes suppressed or underground, of ethnic literary
activity while providing a critique of representations of ethnic identity as found
within the majority culture.

Ethnic and minority literary theory emphasizes the relationship of

cultural identity to individual identity in historical circumstances of overt racial
oppression. More recently, scholars and writers such as Henry Louis Gates, Toni
Morrison, and Kwame Anthony Appiah have brought attention to the problems
inherent in applying theoretical models derived from Euro-centric paradigms
(that is, structures of thought) to minority works of literature while at the same
time exploring new interpretive strategies for understanding the vernacular
(common speech) traditions of racial groups that have been historically
marginalized by dominant cultures.

Though not the first writer to explore the historical condition of

postcolonialism, the Palestinian literary theorist Edward Said’s book
Orientalism is generally regarded as having inaugurated the field of explicitly
“Postcolonial Criticism” in the West. Said argues that the concept of “the
Orient” was produced by the “imaginative geography” of Western scholarship
and has been instrumental in the colonization and domination of non-Western
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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

societies. “Postcolonial” theory reverses the historical center/margin direction of

cultural inquiry: critiques of the metropolis and capital now emanate from the
former colonies.

Moreover, theorists like Homi K. Bhabha have questioned the binary

thought that produces the dichotomies—center/margin, white/black, and
colonizer/colonized—by which colonial practices are justified. The work of
Gayatri C. Spivak has focused attention on the question of who speaks for the
colonial “Other” and the relation of the ownership of discourse and
representation to the development of the postcolonial subjectivity.

Like feminist and ethnic theory, “Postcolonial Criticism” pursues not

merely the inclusion of the marginalized literature of colonial peoples into the
dominant canon and discourse. “Postcolonial Criticism” offers a fundamental
critique of the ideology of colonial domination and at the same time seeks to
undo the “imaginative geography” of Orientalist thought that produced
conceptual as well as economic divides between West and East, civilized and
uncivilized, First and Third Worlds. In this respect, “Postcolonial Criticism” is
activist and adversarial in its basic aims. Postcolonial theory has brought fresh
perspectives to the role of colonial peoples—their wealth, labor, and culture—in
the development of modern European nation states. While “Postcolonial
Criticism” emerged in the historical moment following the collapse of the
modern colonial empires, the increasing globalization of culture, including the
neocolonialism of multinational capitalism, suggests a continued relevance for
this field of inquiry.

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

Every Literary text is constructed with language. Therefore, it is

imperative to determine how a particular writer has utilized the potentials of
language to negotiate meaning(s) for his text This thesis is anchored on the
premise that, as Brumfit and Carter (1986) put it, we need to show "how what is
said is said and how meanings are made" within the psycholinguistic and
sociolinguistic ambience of the text.

As a bilingual and bicultural text, the structure of language use in Okara's

The Voice "calls attention to itself” (Murakarovsky, 1964:58), in the sense that
the author manipulates and adapts the rhythm, register, syntax and semantics of
the English Language to the linguistic and cultural nuances of his native ijaw
Language. Specifically, the peculiarity of Okara's linguistic style in the text
under study is a product of, or direct response to, the lingering problem of
language in African literature.

This problem borders on whether or not the colonial linguistic media (i.e.
Portuguese, English, French etc), would be able to adequately and authentically
express the socio-cultural and linguistic realities of the African continent. Scott
(1990) refers to it as: ….the long-standing debate among critics of African
literature over the relation between African authors and the colonial linguistic
legacy. This debate which has dominated Africa literature in the past fifty years
(Osundare, 2004), stems from the recognition among African scholars/writers of
the centrality of language to literature, and the close connection between
political independence and cultural emancipation. As literary works are cultural
artifacts, the basic thinking is that, the use of colonial languages in African
literature is a willing perpetuation of imperialism. Significantly, there has been a
sustained polarity of opinion about the appropriate attitude the African writer
should adopt to this phenomenon.

These range from the fervidly nationalist to the stridently compromising.

Osundare (2004) identifies three "attitudes" viz: (i) accomodationist, (ii)

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

gradualist, and (iii) radicalist. According to this scholar, the first group (i.e.
accommodationist), which has as its chief promoter, Leopold Sedar Senghor of
Senegal, favours an outright use of imperialist languages; while the "gradualists"
are "the dwellers of the middle of the road", prominent among whom is Ali
Mazrui who advocates a de-Anglicization and reAfricanization of the English
language, to authentically convey Africa's literary sensibilities. The third group,
on the other hand, is the “radicalist” composed of writers who call for an
immediate adoption of indigenous African languages as the media of literary
expression.

Obi Wali and Ngugi Wa Thiongo are proponents and exponents of this
attitude. Instructively, majority of African writers belong to the "gradualist"
group identified above (i.e. indigenizing the colonial language). The Special
Issue on Social Science Research © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA
www.ijhssnet.com 203 Gabriel Okara, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Elechi
Amadi, J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, Kofi Awoonor, etc. all fall into this category. In
the main, this linguistic constraint would have informed the device of
"transliteration" adopted in Okara's The Voice.

On his part, Ushie (2001), summarizes some of the major positions

canvassed by scholars on the problem of language in African literature as
follows: a) Those who, following Obi Wali, have continued to advocate the use
of African indigenous languages, e.g. Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Immeh Ikiddeh.
b) Those who have followed the sophisticated formal English expression e.g.
Okigbo, Soyinka, Dennis Brutus, J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, e.t.c. c) Those who,
following Janheiz Jahn, have suggested that European languages, for instance,
English, be used in such a way that languages bear the African cultural
experience while remaining intelligible internationally.

Chinua Achebe‟s novels, especially Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God,
and the poetry of Okot P „Bitek and Kofi Awoonor illustrate this category. d)

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Literary Theory _________ Master 2 students (Civ & Lit) _____________ Dr. H. Mihoubi

Those who advocate transliteration as a way of keeping intact African cultural

heritage while using foreign words, e.g. Gabriel Okara, AS illustrated in his
novel, The Voice e) Those who may be described as following a plural code e.g.
Ken Saro Wiwa (whose literary oeuvre is a pot-pourri of linguistic codes with
which he has experimented in his work.

His novel, Sozaboy, for instance, comes in Nigerian pidgin English; his
poetry collection Songs in a Time of war, is in both Nigerian “Standard” English
and in Nigerian pidgin English; while several of his biographical works are in
sophisticated Nigerian English, just as his posthumously published novel.
Generally, it is germane to note that African scholars who advocate the use of
indigenous languages are goaded on by nationalist sentiments, while their
counterparts who favour colonial languages place a high premium on the global
intelligibility and outreach of a work of art. Bilingualism and African Literature
We have established Gabriel Okara's text as a bilingual text.

It is, therefore, pertinent to shed some light on the term “bilingualism”, in

relation to African literature. Bloomfield (1933) defines the term as “the native-
like control of two languages". Lambert (1977) sees it as "the existence of two
languages in the repertoire of an individual or a speech community". The
significant thread that runs through both definitions is that the term reflects a
situation where two languages are used side by side, whether by an individual or
a given society. Bilingualism is a product of language contact. Appel and
Muystan (1987:1) confirm inter alia: “Language contact inevitably leads to
bilingualism.” The inference of this is that, at least, two different languages with
distinctive features (i.e. lexical, semantic, phonological and syntactic) must
come into contact for bilingualism to occur or manifest. Akindele and Adegbite
(1992) identify factors such as colonialism, commerce, conquest, annexation and
war, etc, as having the potentials to precipitate such language contacts.

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