LESSON 13
POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM
Overview:
Post-colonial criticism is similar to cultural studies, but it assumes a unique
perspective on literature and politics that warrants a separate discussion. Specifically,
post-colonial critics are concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and
works produced by those who were/are colonized. Post-colonial theory looks at issues
of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in
relation to colonial hegemony (Western colonizers controlling the colonized).
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:
a) define postcolonial Criticism;
b) discuss how to analyze a literary piece using postcolonial Criticism; and
c) perform a literary analysis using Postcolonial Criticism
Materials Needed:
Computer/Android phone with internet connection (Moodle, Google Meet and
Google Classroom)
Duration: 3 hours
Learning Content:
Biography of the Proponent
Note: There are many proponents of the theory — Postcolonial Criticism, but we will
present these two (2) major contributors of the said theory. These are (1) Frantz Fan on
and (2) Edward Said.
Frantz Omar Fanon
Frantz Fanon, in full Frantz Omar Fanon, (born July 20, 1925, Fort-de-France,
Martinique—died December 6, 1961, Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.), West Indian
psychoanalyst and social philosopher known for his theory that some neuroses are
socially generated and for his writings on behalf of the national liberation of colonial
peoples. His critiques influenced subsequent generations of thinkers and activists.
Notable Works
“The Wretched of the Earth”
After attending schools in Martinique, Fanon served in the Free French Army
during World War II and afterward attended school in France, completing his studies in
medicine and psychiatry at the University of Lyon. In 1953–56 he served as head of the
psychiatry department of Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria, which was then part of
France. While treating Algerians and French soldiers, Fanon began to observe the
effects of colonial violence on the human psyche. He began working with the Algerian
liberation movement, the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale; FLN),
and in 1956 became an editor of its newspaper, El Moudjahid, published in Tunis. In
1960 he was appointed ambassador to Ghana by Algeria’s FLN-led provisional
government. That same year Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. In 1961 he received
treatment for the disease in the United States, where he later died.
Fanon’s Peau noire, masques blancs (1952; Black Skin, White Masks) is a
multidisciplinary analysis of the effect of colonialism on racial consciousness. Integrating
psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism, and Negritude theory, Fanon
articulated an expansive view of the psychosocial repercussions of colonialism on
colonized people. The publication shortly before his death of his book Les Damnés de la
terre (1961; The Wretched of the Earth) established Fanon as a leading intellectual in
the international decolonization movement; the preface to his book was written by Jean-
Paul Sartre.
Edward Said (1935–2003)
The American writer and academic Edward Said (1935–2003) has been ranked
among the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, with much of the field of
postcolonial studies springing directly or indirectly from his ideas. He was also an
intellectual in action, devoting much of his energy to advocacy for the Palestinian people
and their aspirations.Controversial in his work, Said had both admirers and detractors.
Few statements beyond the bare facts of his life would meet with universal agreement
from observers, and even those bare facts were sometimes in dispute. But divergent
views of Said were, in a way, inevitable, for Said was a man of many contradictions. He
was an academic, and yet he spent much of his time addressing the public, often having
to cancel classes he taught at Columbia University because he was booked for
television appearances. He was a Christian Arab who both defended the Islamic world
and, by his own testimony, felt close to Jews for much of his life. He spent many years
working toward the goal of Palestinian nationhood but renounced that goal in the last
decade of his life. He was attacked by Israelis as a terrorist, and by Palestinians as too
accommodating to Israel. Said's scholarly works indicted Western cultural traditions as
complicit in colonialism, but he played and wrote about European classical music
extensively and enthusiastically.
Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present)
History is Written by The Victors
A post-colonial critic might be interested in works such as Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe where colonial "...ideology [is] manifest in Crusoe's colonialist attitude
toward the land upon which he's shipwrecked and toward the black man he 'colonizes'
and names Friday" (Tyson 377). In addition, post-colonial theory might point out that
"...despite Heart of Darkness's (Joseph Conrad) obvious anti-colonist agenda, the novel
points to the colonized population as the standard of savagery to which Europeans are
contrasted" (Tyson 375). Post-colonial criticism also takes the form of literature
composed by authors that critique Euro-centric hegemony.
A Unique Perspective on Empire
Seminal post-colonial writers such as Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and
Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o have written a number of stories recounting the
suffering of colonized people. For example, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe details the
strife and devastation that occurred when British colonists began moving inland from the
Nigerian coast.
Rather than glorifying the exploratory nature of European colonists as they
expanded their sphere of influence, Achebe narrates the destructive events that led to
the death and enslavement of thousands of Nigerians when the British imposed their
Imperial government. In turn, Achebe points out the negative effects (and shifting ideas
of identity and culture) caused by the imposition of Western religion and economics on
Nigerians during colonial rule.
Power, Hegemony, and Literature
Post-colonial criticism also questions the role of the Western literary canon and
Western history as dominant forms of knowledge making. The terms "First World,"
"Second World," "Third World" and "Fourth World" nations are critiqued by post-colonial
critics because they reinforce the dominant positions of Western cultures populating
First World status. This critique includes the literary canon and histories written from the
perspective of First World cultures. So, for example, a post-colonial critic might question
the works included in "the canon" because the canon does not contain works by authors
outside Western culture.
Moreover, the authors included in the canon often reinforce colonial hegemonic
ideology, such as Joseph Conrad. Western critics might consider Heart of Darkness an
effective critique of colonial behavior. But post-colonial theorists and authors might
disagree with this perspective: "...as Chinua Achebe observes, the novel's
condemnation of European is based on a definition of Africans as savages: beneath
their veneer of civilization, the Europeans are, the novel tells us, as barbaric as the
Africans. And indeed, Achebe notes, the novel portrays Africans as a pre-historic mass
of frenzied, howling, incomprehensible barbarians..." (Tyson 374-375).
Typical questions in using Postcolonial criticism as a literary criticism:
How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of
colonial oppression?
What does the text reveal about the problematics of post-colonial identity,
including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and such issues
as double consciousness and hybridity?
What person(s) or groups does the work identify as "other" or stranger? How are
such persons/groups described and treated?
What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist
resistance?
What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference - the ways in
which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and
customs combine to form individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of
ourselves, others, and the world in which we live?
How does the text respond to or comment upon the characters, themes, or
assumptions of a canonized (colonialist) work?
Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different post-colonial
populations?
How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist
ideology through its representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate
silence about colonized peoples? (Tyson 378-379)
Here is a list of scholars we encourage you to explore to further your
understanding of this theory:
Criticism
Edward Said - Orientalism, 1978; Culture and Imperialism, 1994
Kamau Brathwaite - The History of the Voice, 1979
Gayatri Spivak - In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, 1987
Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and
Resistance, 1991
Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture, 1994
Literature and non-fiction
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart, 1958
Ngugi wa Thiong'o - The River Between, 1965
Sembene Ousmane - God's Bits of Wood, 1962
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust, 1975
Buchi Emecheta - The Joys of Motherhood, 1979
Keri Hulme - The Bone People, 1983
Robertson Davies - What's Bred in the Bone, 1985
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day, 1988
Bharati Mukherjee - Jasmine, 1989
Jill Ker Conway - The Road from Coorain, 1989
Helena Norberg-Hodge - Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, 1991
Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient, 1992
Gita Mehta - A River Sutra, 1993
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things, 1997
Patrick Chamoiseau - Texaco, 1997
