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Features of post colonial theory in literature
Salient features of post colonial literature
Features of post colonial theory in literature
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Oroonoko is short literary novel, written in 1688 by Aphra Behn, which details the love story of two enslaved Surinam nobilities, who both meet their atrocious ends. Through her explicit analytical language she lets the English colonists know that the enslaved masses had a refined culture and ideological force that was incapable of being disregarded. Aphra Behn was innovative in her plight as being one of the foremost political female novelists of her time. Throughout her narrative she argues "centres on the problems of authority and representatively," and tries to incorporate the fact, "that the presence of the foreigner in our society turns the pronoun 'we' into an impossibility" (Grant p.114). Although Behn neither argues the point of attacking slavery nor denies the issue, she does show the brutal acts imposed on other cultures and helps her readers attach themselves to the protagonist in the narrative. Oroonoko sheds light on the terrors of slavery and paints many of the white colonists as inhumane, unethical and deceitful, furthering the notion that this piece of literature can be viewed as a work of anti-colonialism.
“Mrs. Behn who’s genius was of that force like homer’s, to maintain its gaiety in the midst of disappointments, which a woman her sense and merit ought never to have met with: But she had a great strength of mind and command of thought being able to write in the midst of company” (A. Behn). While Behn never asserts her true intentions in writings this narrative, it can be viewed in various aspects. Although, incorporating it in an aspect of anti-colonialism meter seems rash, the language used to inscribe this work makes Behn’s ploy more visible. Although, in the plights of the characters it seems hard not to ...
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... colonists as inhumane, unethical and deceitful, furthering the notion that this piece of literature can be viewed as a work of anti-colonialism.
Works Cited
Behn , Aphra. Oroonoko or The noble Slave. 1688.
Flood, 1530 what was a trickle of slaves had now become a, 000 slaves were being imported per annum. As more of the America, the Caribbean Islands were conquered the demand for slaves exploded, between 1800, and 1865 it is believed about 4 million slaves were landed in the Americas.. " The African Slave Trade - Slaves in Africa." ClickAfrique - Africa's leading online portal for africans by africans.. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
Grant, S-M. Journal of American Studies 29.1 (1995): 113-114.
Molefi K. Asante, Abu Shardow Abarry. African intellectual heritage:. Temple University Press, 1996.
...t be read in such a light and contrast to other sources on early colonial history.
In the poem pride, Dahlia Ravikovitch uses many poetic devices. She uses an analogy for the poem as a whole, and a few metaphors inside it, such as, “the rock has an open wound.” Ravikovitch also uses personification multiple times, for example: “Years pass over them as they wait.” and, “the seaweed whips around, the sea bursts forth and rolls back--” Ravikovitch also uses inclusive language such as when she says: “I’m telling you,” and “I told you.” She uses these phrases to make the reader feel apart of the poem, and to draw the reader in. She also uses repetition, for example, repetition of the word years.
Although many themes arise in Behn’s Oroonoko, religion is the most dominant, that is, of course, the author’s emphasis on the hypocrisy of Christianity. For example, in the narrative, Imoinda, Prince Oroonoko’s wife, faces colonial settlers who use their religious effort in hope to justify the ‘righteousness’ of their doings, as Mr. Trefry says, “we have christened her. But she denies us all with such a noble disdain, that ‘tis a miracle to see that she, who can give such eternal desires, should herself be all ice and all unconcern” (Oroonoko 2337). In other words, neither end of the spectrum can come to a medium conclusion. However, if the reader looks in between the lines of the quote, he or she can see that Behn’s use of words, “christened,
The end of the 17th century marked the beginning of a new age known as the Enlightenment. During this time many remarkable philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Spinoza emerged. They handled very many difficult topics and discussed the world around them. They doubted ideas that had been thought of as absolutes for centuries and began to think in new and inventive ways. While this was going on, Europeans were conquering the Americas. Explorers had to deal with the moral dilemma of how they would handle the people they came across. Aphra Behn dealt with this issue of colonialism by writing the book Oroonoko, a tale about a noble African man. Behn, in this book, contrasts the civilized Europeans with Africans, whom the Europeans deemed savage.
Behn is remarkable because as a spy for the British crown and the first woman to make a living as a writer, she circumnavigated her gender and claimed an identity previously only thought possible for a man. In her 1677 play The Rover, Behn laments that her female characters are trapped w...
Generally, as expressed in Charles Bressler’s Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice (4th Edition), post-colonialism encompasses a study of literature written in countries that are or were at some point in time colonized by England or some other imperial power (235). This analysis of literature implies or assumes that the peoples of these texts experienced social, political, and economic influences from an outside force, and were made out to be the “other” right on their own homeland. While Frankenstein is by no means a tale of conquest, the concepts of isolation and oppression are eminent throughou...
In reading Oroonoko it might be easy to miss the criticism offered against the European culture. Upon studying the novel however, this criticism which had been presented subtly becomes quite clear. An important note is that the author and the narrator are not in fact the same. Although the author is out to provide a criticism of European culture and values, she is reluctant to let it come through the narrator. This critique comes through mainly in less direct forms, through her non-European characters, most often Oroonoko, and through comparisons between cultures and the characters encountered in each.
Aphra Behn’s novel, Oroonoko, gives a very different perspective on a slave narrative. Her characters embody various characteristics not usually given to those genders and races. Imoinda’s character represents both the modern feminist, as well as the subservient and mental characteristics of the typical eighteenth-century English woman. Oroonoko becomes an embodiment of what is normally a white man’s characteristic; he is the noble, princely, and sympathetic character that is not usually attributed to black men in general throughout most novels of slavery. The complete opposite character style is given to the slavers; the English are viewed as the barbaric, cunning, brutal characters that are usually portrayed in opposite and more generous fashion. Behn’s romantic tragedy comes full circle, from Oroonoko fighting a war, falling in love and being tricked into slavery, to Oroonoko in battle against his captors, to killing his love and dying in slavery.
In the article, "Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse," Helen Tiffin raises a number of issues in regards to the hybridization of the colonized and how European universals invariably clash with that of the native. From the very beginning of the article, Tiffin notes that there is a "call to arms" (so to speak) that encompasses the "demand for an entirely new or wholly recovered 'reality,' free from all colonial taint" (95). This hope is idealistic, especially when evaluating the role that the English language plays in the lives of those who are colonized. Tiffin realizes this fact and views most post-colonial literature as a "counter-discursive" mode of expression that is highly involved in "challenging the notion of literary universality" (96).
Writing on slavery, Aphra Behn in the novella Oroonoko; Or, The Royal Slave, is clever in putting together the life of a slave and that of the white man to create the character Oroonoko. Throughout Oroonoko, Behn places the character Oroonoko, between the top of the hierarchy of society as a Prince in his native country, that then parallels to being part of the society of the Englishman. However, such ideas are then balanced by the verity that Oroonoko is a black man who then is turned into a slave. That balance is carried throughout the novel, which becomes vital for bringing the reader to connect with the text through Oroonoko, and for the life of a slave to connect with the reader, which Behn does effectively in order to form and convey
Brown, Paul. "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine: The Tempest and the discourse of colonialism." New York: Collimore and Sinfield, 1985. pp. 48-71.
In addition, Phillips responds to Achebe’s claim for describing the Africans as not human beings. Indeed, he argues that is to criticize the excessive power of the colonizer and misusing it against the natives. In other words, it reveals the viciousness of the Europeans as it emphasizes on slavery. That is to say, the natives are considered as animals; they are beaten and paralyzed with fear, claiming that it is part of their job. Such hypocrisy is well shown through the men who works for the company as he describes what they do as `trade' and their treatment of native Africans as part of a benevolent project of civilization. In like manner, it is often criticized by Marlow as he witnesses all sorts of cruelty during his three journeys, denouncing the hidden facet of the company and the horror that was occurring at
was conducting while assembling its overseas empire. Behn paints the majority of the white colonists as unmitigated illustrations of greed, dishonesty, and brutality. Through these depraved individuals, Behn regularly articulates the barbarism innate in British nature as opposed to the African prince Oroonoko, whom is conveyed as the quintisential model of nobility, physical prowness, and honor. These reoccuring motifs apparent throughout the literary work reveal Behn's intention of undermining the inhumane treatment of the colonized populice and the criticism of overseas expansion. Upon close examination of the literary work, one could conclusively view Aphra Behn's Oroonoko as an assailment against the dehumanization of the colonized people and a subtle criticism of Britain
Postcolonial literature often emphasizes the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, emerging at the same time that many colonies were fighting their way to independence. Postcolonial writers, especially those who are from Africa, South Asia, and Caribbean, "wrote back" to the empire to challenge the imperial assumptions that had justified colonialism in the first place. Wide Sargasso Sea of Jean Rhys is the prequel of Jane Eyre, which tells the story of Rochester's mad wife Bertha Mason. Wide Sargasso Sea is such a novel written by the formerly colonized people who attempt to “articulate their identity and reclaim their past in the face of that past's inevitable otherness” (Ciolkowski 344). It tends to correct the imagined image that the colonizer imposed on them and in the meanwhile resists and even subverts the colonizing authority. This paper studies how Jean Rhys's postcolonial text, Wide Sargasso Sea, reveals the issues of racial conflict and gender oppression under the discourse of Eurocentrism, and challenges the colonizing authority by the subversive power of black language.
Having done the above analysis on my favourite text, “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo, I realise that my like for the text have heightened because the analysis of Anowa has given me a deeper understanding of Africa’s colonialism. I now know what actually led to our colonialisation (the betrayal) and how it began(the bond of 1844) through the personal lives of Anowa and Kofi.