Name
: Dharma J. Gohel
Roll
No : 09
Class
: M.A. Sem-3
Paper
– 11: Literature
Batch
: 2017-19
Enrollment
No : 2069108420180014
Submitted
to : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Topic
: Post Colonial Reading of Selected Movies
Words: 1849
#
Post-colonialism in Literature and post-colonial reading of Two movies :
In many
works of literature, specifically those coming out of Africa, the Middle East,
and the Indian subcontinent, we meet characters who are struggling with their
identities in the wake of colonization, or the establishment of colonies
in another nation. For example, the British had a colonial presence in India
from the 1700s until India gained its independence in 1947. As you can imagine,
the people of India, as well as the characters in Indian novels, must deal with
the economic, political, and emotional effects that the British brought and
left behind. This is true for literature that comes out of any colonized
nation. In many cases, the literature stemming from these events is both
emotional and political.
The post-colonial
theorist enters these texts through a specific critical lens, or a
specific way of reading a text. That critical lens, post-colonial theory or
post-colonialism, asks the reader to analyze and explain the effects that
colonization and imperialism, or the extension of power into other
nations, have on people and nations. post-colonialism asks the reader to enter a text through the post-colonial
lens.
Postcolonial literature emerged at the same time that many colonies
were fighting their way to independence. It really began picking up as a
coherent literary movement in the mid-twentieth century. Many classic
postcolonial texts were published between the 1950s and 1990s. And while drama
and poetry are important in postcolonial literature, it's really the novel that
defines this movement.
What the
postcolonial writers did was as important as what the anti-colonial freedom
fighters and activists did. That's because postcolonial writers challenged some
of the basic assumptions (like "white people are better") that had
justified colonialism in the first place. In other words, the writers'
battlefield was the mind, while the freedom fighters' battlefield was… well,
the battlefield.
Postcolonial writers
emerging from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, South America and other
places"wrote back" to the empire. They decided that the big guys—like
Britain and Francehad been hogging the microphone for too long. Now it was time
for postcolonial writers to tell their own stories, from their own
perspectives. We all love justice. Isn't it nice when everyone's treated
fairly, when we each have the freedom to do what we want and pursue our own
happiness? That's the world we all want to live in. If you dig justice,
equality and freedom, you'll dig postcolonial literature. Because it's a
literature born out of the struggle of colonized peoples for justice, equality
and freedom. Postcolonial literature is the literature of the underdog. All
those people who were brutalized and exploited for decades by European
colonizers, finding their voices and standing up for themselves—that's what
postcolonial literature is all about Postcolonial writers tell history
from their perspective and show how the history written by
colonizers is—you guessed it—totally biased against the colonized and toward
the colonizers. When postcolonial
writers take colonial languages like English and French and use them to talk
back to the colonizers in a way they can't help but understand, that's a fancy
little thing we call appropriation of colonial languages. (shmoop)
Literary texts do not simply reflect dominant ideologies, but encode the
tensions, complexities and nuances within colonial culture. Literature is a
place where ‘Transculturation’ takes place in all it’s complexities. The
colonial contact is not just reflected in the language or imagery
of literary texts, it is not just a backdrop of ‘context’ against which human
dramas are enacted, but a central aspect of what these texts have to say about
identity, relationships and culture.
Language and literature are together implicated in constructing the binary of a
European self and N0n-European others. Which as Said’s Orientalism
suggested, is a part of the creation of colonial authority. Literature in
such reading, both reflects and creates way of seeing and modes of articulation
that are central to the colonial process. It is especially crucial to the
formation of colonial discourses because it influences people as
individual. But literary texts can also militate against dominant ideologies or
contain elements which can not be reconciled to them. Plays such as
Othello and The Tempest evoke contemporary ideas about incivility of
non-European. Both plays have been interpreted and taught in ways that endorse
colonialist ways of seeing, but both have also inspired anti-colonial and
anti-racist movements and literatures as texts that expose the workings of
colonialism.
# Post-colonial reading of movies:
(1) “ Midnight’s Children”
'Midnight's children' is
a novel by the famous writer 'Salman Rushdie'. Midnight's children won
both the Booker
Prize and
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It
was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and
2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. it is a
postcolonial novel in which writer gives account of events happened during
British India and Independent India. He adds the beauty to these events by
using the tool 'Magic Realism' which makes novel imaginative piece of
literature instead of boring historical novel.
The protagonist of novel Saleem sinai was born on the exact movement when India
gained it's freedom from British rule, 15th august,1947. He is the narrator of
story and starts telling from the life of his grandfather. His grandfather
named Adam Aziz was doctor begins treating Naseem his grandmother. Here one can
read postcolonial feminism that Adam was not allowed to treat Naseem directly.
Even Doctor can not check woman, she remained in 'parda'. Novel begins in
Kashmir, the place is already problematic for India and Pakistan. Novel speaks
about some minority muslim people who didn't want partition. But 'Islamophobia'
spreads in such a way nowadays that we always blame them for everything.
Saleem born on the midnight of India's independence with giant nose therefore
possesses telepathic power to gather children who born on the same midnight.
other children also possess the enormous power. 'Magic realism' is the
aesthetic aspect of the novel. so readers can not question or accept surreal
things as telepathic power of Saleem, Even the mother Naseem can go into the
dreams of daughters, Parvati's power of doing magic 'Abra ka dabra'.
Novel raises the ontological question of Saleem's life. We can find several
gray areas about Saleem's identity. When we ask question epistemologicaly at
that time we find several information about his existence and
identity. Perhaps he is child of William Mathwold and slave lady so the
problem of hybridity takes place. But then exchanged by nurse and
got rich family. 'Let the rich be poor and poor be rich'. it suggests that we
are thrown in this careless universe, we don't have control over birth. The
identity which is given to us or label with which we live as Hindu, Muslim or
christian is fake. Because we don't know the fact about someone's birth. Saleem
lives with given identity but all of a sudden he come across the truth that 'he
is not what he is'. And suddenly lost his fortune and becomes poor person. so
at the end he speaks that 'I had many family and no family'.
Political crisis is one of the major events of the novel. Which portrayed the India
during 'Indira Gandhi's' rule. Emergency is world-known political crisis for
India.Novel evokes the pathetic condition of poor people. India got the
democracy, freedom and progress at the cost of poor people. Salman Rushdie
makes fun of India's progress by suggesting that India and Saleem grew
together.
One can find a postcolonial aspect in novel and film. Because salman Rushdie
was abandoned writer for India and 'Deepa Mehta' the director of the film is
Canadian. So they portrayed India as a country of 'snake charmers' and the
people who believe in superstitions. So they narrate 'Orient' people as
inferior and badly poor.
In a way this novel has the postcolonial characteristics. which gives picture
of India during British rule and after the independence.
(2) “
The Reluctant Fundamentalist”
"The
Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a 2007 novel written by the Pakistan-born
writer Mohsin Hamid and film is directed by Mira Nair. This is post 9/11 story
about the impact of Al Qaeda on one Pakistani person and his treatment by
Americans in reaction to them.
One ambitious
Pakistani man, Changez khan goes to America to have bright future. He belongs
to the gentle and educated family. His father is a poet, well known person and
respected by all. Changez khan has the great literary heritage.He belongs to
great literary canon but distracted from that path. instead of following
family tradition he went to America.He easily mix up with the environment and
people of America. He is Intellectual man so proves himself better than other
colleague and also got the promotion by owner of company. This may be the
reason for jealousy of American people and they consider other people as
'outsider'. He falls in love with Erica, American artist. Everything was well
going but his life changed after the attack of 9/11 on America.
Suddenly American people
start doubting him because he comes with label of 'Pakistani'. Even her
girlfriend Erica suspects him. She ask him that 'do you know anything about the
attack?' Very furiously he replies that 'how can i know about attack?'. His
moustache becomes the symbol of terror for American people. Even his
love abuse him by portraying him as Pakistani and not as 'Human being' in her
photographs.He recognizes himself as American and tells that 'I love America'
but no one believes him and try to make him 'Terrorist' just because he is
Pakistani. He faces many adversity adversity and finally he commit
professional suicide and came back to Pakistan.
In 2011 Anse
Rainier, an American professor at Lahore university is kidnapped. An American
journalist arranges the interview a colleague of Rainier, Changez khan. Whom he
suspects just because he was doubted for the American attack.
Changez khan tells entire story to Robert Lincoln in flashback It's
no wonder that the words 'Islam' and 'Fundamentalism' are tightly coupled in
the mind of every person. everyone suffers from 'Islamophobia' which is only
the oriental narration of power country that is America. It has spread
Islamophobia in such a way that we always blame Muslims for terrorism. As
Edward said rightly put that Americans narrate Muslims as 'Orient' and them as
'Occident'.
# Conclusion:
“ Literature is the
mirror of society. “ One can find a direct reflection of society into literature.
Society provides the theme and subjects of literature. Literature is the
expression of joy, happiness, suffering, pain of writer himself. Most of
the country colonized for longer period of time. And still suffering from the
effect of colonialism. Which gets reflected into wide range of literature.
Works Cited
shmoop. 22 october 2017
<https://www.shmoop.com/postcolonial-literature/>.
No comments:
Post a Comment