Critical Criticism Of Postcolonial Literature

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Recommended: Salient features of post colonial literature

Postcolonial Literature
In Postcolonial criticism, it draws attention to issues of cultural differences in literary texts. It is one of the critical approaches that are considered to focuses on specific issues. These specific issues include gender, class, and sexual orientation. Postcolonial critics reject the claims to universalism and seek to show its limitations. It examines the representation of other cultures in literature and it shows how such literature is often silent on matters concerned with colonization and imperialism. The ancestry of Postcolonial criticism can be traced back to Franz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth published in 1961. Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique, argued that the first step for colonialized people …show more content…

These works of literature are not solely colonialist narratives. Postcolonialism includes a wide range of writers and subjects. The different experience each ex-colony faced, caused different geographical, historical, religious, social, and economic concerns and these are portrayed in each author 's novels (Ivison). Some wrote inspiringly about the struggle for independence while others focused on the conflicting interest of the natives under and after colonialists. When criticizing literature from a Postcolonial view there are elements that help us characterize it as fitting into this category of literature. The first characteristic of Postcolonialism is the appropriation of colonial languages. This is when language if their colonizer is used adding pieces of their own original language it. The second characteristic is that it is a metanarrative. This is when they show a different point of view of a story. Another aspect this type of literature has is colonialism and colonial discourse. Rewriting history is also found in this type of literature. European colonizers often thought that the people they colonized had no history, culture, or tradition. To take back what was lost or misbelieved these novels share the history of their country before the Europeans came. And last all Postcolonial literature shares decolonization struggles

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