2. If we look at the way the term is formed, we’ll get quite close to
its meaning.
The word colonial refers to the process of colonization, to the
idea of empire, to the encounter between two cultures (that of
the colonizer and the colonized) and to the effects brought about
by such encounter.
The prefix post- may be interpreted as either after or a
continuation of: in this case, after the process of colonization or a
continuation of it. This last meaning does not necessarily have to
do with a literal act of colonization: in fact, many countries have
gained independence. However, former colonies are still
“haunted” by the ghost of power, manipulation and strength the
empire has created.
3. The issue of territorial expansion and empire has
been present for ages. And it has become a
central subject and concern in Literature.
The texts we are currently dealing with explore
XIXth century colonization (Queen Victoria’s
empire) and its repercussions in the XXth and
XXIst centuries (process of decolonization).
Postcolonial Literature tackles the impact English
territorial expansion has had on different
communities and individuals and what it was like
to be subdued to their culture, their economy, their
beliefs and their language.
4. There are certain questions which readers may want to ask themselves
so as to achieve greater understanding and a wider perspective of the
microcosm and the macrocosm.
Is the text written by the empire or by the colony?
Is the author related to the culture of the colonizer or of the colonized?
Is the author in his country of origin or is (s)he displaced?
Is the text written in the country of the colonizer or of the colonized?
Is the text written in standard English or in a variety of English?
Is the text writing back to another text/ culture/ discourse?
5. The concept of writing back was coined by Salman
Rushdie, who wrote and theorized about the issue of
Imperialism and became inspired by the film Star Wars:
The Empire Strikes Back to illustrate his point.
Certain texts may write back to other texts, cultures,
ideologies, discourses, and so on. This literary
phenomenon aims at dismantling the Eurocentric view of
the world, the literary hegemony (or the canon), the norm
and the binary oppositions which have historically
positioned “the West” under a positive light. Writing back
proposes alternative discourses, new voices.
7. Reading texts within a postcolonial framework of
analysis invites us to see texts as cultural products. As
a result, it is likely for readers to delve into the context
of production and the setting the literary work
presents. This reading practice also challenges
cultural roles and binary oppositions. In fact, can we
think in terms of good/bad, white/black,
colonizer/colonized? In addition, new voices and a
plurality of interpretations are welcome to emerge and
be heard, thereby allowing multiple points of view to
coexist and interact.
8. Try and identify postcolonial elements in the poem
“Colonization in reverse” by Jamaican writter Louise
Bennet.
Louise Bennett was a Jamaican poet born on September 7, 1919. She has
been described as the only poet who has really hit the truth about her society
through its own language. Through her poems in Jamaican patois, she not only
raised the dialect of the Jamaican folk to an art level but also captured all the
spontaneity of the expression of Jamaicans' joys and sorrows, their ready,
poignant and even wicked wit, their religion and their philosophy of life. A British
Council Scholarship took her to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in
London, where she studied in the late 1940s. In 1974, she was awarded the
Order of Jamaica. She also received the Norman Manley Award for Excellence
in the arts and a honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of West
Indies. In 2001, she was made a Member of the Order of Merit for her
contribution to the development of Jamaican Arts and Culture. She died on July
26, 2006, in Toronto, Canada.
9. Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in Reverse
Be the hundred, be de tousan
Fro country and from town,
By de ship-load, be the plane load
Jamaica is Englan boun.
Dem pour out a Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.
What an islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old an young
Jus a pack dem bag an baggage
An turn history upside dung!
Some people doan like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a open up cheap-fare-
To-England agency.
An week by week dem shipping off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat a de Empire.
Oonoo see how life is funny,
Oonoo see da turnabout?
Jamaica live fe box bread
Out a English people mout’.
For wen dem ketch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.
Jane says de dole is not too bad
Because dey paying she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
dat suit her dignity
me say Jane will never fine work
At de rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay popn Aunt Fan couch
An read love-story book.
Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But me wondering how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse.
10. Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in Reverse
Be the hundred, be de tousan
Fro country and from town,
By de ship-load, be the plane load
Jamaica is Englan boun.
Dem pour out a Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.
What an islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old an young
Jus a pack dem bag an baggage
An turn history upside dung!
Some people doan like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a open up cheap-fare-
To-England agency.
An week by week dem shipping off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat a de Empire.
Oonoo see how life is funny,
Oonoo see da turnabout?
Jamaica live fe box bread
Out a English people mout’.
For wen dem ketch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.
Jane says de dole is not too bad
Because dey paying she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
dat suit her dignity
me say Jane will never fine work
At de rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay popn Aunt Fan couch
An read love-story book.
Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But me wondering how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse.
