KJ SOMAIYA COLLEGE OF

ARTS & COMMERCE,

MUMBAI
NAME – SOURAV KUMAR
ROLL NO – 09
TOPIC- POSTCOLONIAL
LITERATURE
SUBTOPIC – POSTCOLONIAL
LITERATURE WITH REFERENCE TO
 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE
■ Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized
countries. It exists on all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial
literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the
decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political
and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes
such as racialism and colonialism. A range of literary theory has evolved
around the subject. It addresses the role of literature in perpetuating and
challenging what postcolonial critic Edward Said refers to as cultural
imperialism.
■ Migrant literature and postcolonial literature show some considerable
overlap. However, not all migration takes place in a colonial setting, and
not all postcolonial literature deals with migration. A question of current
debate is the extent to which postcolonial theory also speaks to migration
literature in non-colonial settings.
Works of POSTCOLONIAL
LITERATURE
■ Postcolonial literature represents all these conditions and
comes from various sources and inspiration. It includes works
such as Samuel Beckett’s Murphy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s
Children, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Tayeb Salih’s
Season of Migration to the North, Toni Morrison’s Beloved,
J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, Michael
Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Arundhati Roy’s The God of
Small Things, NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names,
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, and Ingolo Mbue’s Behold the
Dreamers, among many others.
 Historical review of Postcolonialism
■ Rooted in Colonial Power and Prejudice,
Postcolonialism develops from a four thousand
year History of strained cultural relations between
colonies in Africa and Asia the western world.
Throughout this long history, the west became the
colonizers and their people became the colonized.
■ During 19th century, Great Britain emerged as
largest colonizer and Imperial power, quickly
gaining control of almost one quarter of earth’s
landmass.
■ Under its political and economic strength, Great Britain, the
chief imperialist of the 19th century, dominated her colonies,
making them produce then give up their raw materials in
exchange for what material goods the colonized desiredm
■ Forced Labour of the colonized became the rule of the day and
the institution of slavery wad commercialized.
■ For ex- Heart of Darkness (1899) is a classic example of post
colonialism work. It comments on Imperialism and racism.
Conrad offers parallel betwen London the greatest town on
earth and Africa as places pf darkness. In Novel African
Characters have no real identity, sick both in physical and
spiritual health. They are dying of disease and worshipping
thevevil and undeserving Kurtz. They are described as Savages.
 'Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe as
an example of Postcolonial Novel.
■ Being a postcolonial narrative, Things Fall Apart experiences a wide critical acclaim. From the
pen of Chinua Achebe, the Igbo cultural complexity has come into being a theme that opens up
a historical account of the clash of two cultures. Okonkwo, a very well-known public figure in
his community falls under the threat of a new culture brought by the white missionaries
preaching the gospels of the Christianity. After the arrival of the Christian culture, the first
collision that takes place is the division at the individual, and then at the societal levels. When a
number of the Igbo people, including Okonkwo’s son, change their religion, it creates chaos and
confusions throughout the community. Although the Igbo people have a well-established way of
life, the Europeans do not understand. That is why they show no respect to the cultural practices
of the Igbo people. What Achebe delivers in the novel is that Africans are not savages and their
societies are not mindless. The things fall apart because Okonkwo fails at the end to take his
people back to the culture they all shared once. The sentiments the whites show to the blacks
regarding the Christianity clearly recap the slave treatment the blacks were used to receive from
the whites in the past. Achebe shows that the picture of the Africans portrayed in literature and
histories are not real, but the picture was seen through the eyes of the Europeans. Consequently,
Okonkwo hangs himself when he finds his established rules and orders are completely exiled by
his own people and when he sees Igbo looses its honor by falling apart.
POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE
with reference to Indian English
Writing
■ In the Words of Dr. N. Jha-
■ The post independence poets have freed
themselves from the clutches of
Englishness and have started writing in a
very Indian Manner. They have evolved an
idiom of their own... a kind of poetic
language in which the Indian mind can
best be expressed.
 Writers’ Workshop
■ It was an organisation formed by Purushottam Lal in 1858 in Calcutta. It
Played an important role in making Indian Modern English poetry popular.
It gave Indian poets their own identity as poets.
■ Realism, Surrealism and Experimentation can be marked as features of this
poetry.
'Nissim Ezekiel with reference to
'Enterprise’
Nissim Ezekiel (16 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was an
Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor and art critic. He
was a foundational figure in postcolonial India’s literary history,
specifically for Indian Poetry in English.
Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian-born poet of Jewish descent and
has been described as the “father of post-independence Indian
verse in English”. He had a number of collections of poetry
published which were very popular and some, such as The Night
Of The Scorpion, and the anti-jingoism poem The Patriot, are
standard verses still studied in some British and Indian schools.
He had a varied career as an English teacher in India, England
and the United States. He wrote plays, worked as a broadcaster on
Indian radio and contributed many critical articles to the literary
sections of magazines and newspapers.
 ‘ENTERPRISE’
In ‘Enterprise’ the poet, Nissim Ezekiel talks about going on a pilgrimage. He
is not alone in the journey. There are other pilgrims too in that group. They
have set out to reach a destination that is unknown to the readers. It is not
disclosed even at the end of the poem. There is a hint in the poem that the
place is somewhere near the sea. The poet divides their journey into some
stages. In each stage, the path they have chosen is not that smooth. They have
to face some difficulties in order to reach their goal. Some members leave the
group for their difference of opinion. One such person is an intellectual and
prose writer.

■ The situation worsens when they are close to their destination. But the
ending is paradoxical. Even after suffering from hardships to reach their
coveted goal, they feel dejected after reaching there. At last, the poet
paradoxically remarks, “Home is where we have to gather grace.”
 The Poem is an example of Allegory.
■ Allegory: Allegory can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. The
poem ‘Enterprise’ is allegorical in nature. The group of men all set for the
journey, enthusiastic and full of vigour set out for the spiritual quest. They
face hardships, difficulties yet they do not lose their aspirations. But during
the second stage of their journey, disharmony and differences in opinions
among the members arises and soon a conflict breaks out which results in
disunity. The final stanza raises a question, ‘Was the journey worth all the
struggles?’ The journey here is a metaphor of life. The poem is a stark
depiction of the condition of men on this earth who are subjected to such
failures, hardships and disillusionment during their course of journey of
life. There are many critics who feel that this poem is a search for the
meaning of life’s journey. Our life also begins with high expectations. But
we often deviate from the aim or face tough challenges in the middle, and
finally reach the last stage without much achievement.
■ Enterprise is a pessimistm poem, however, the
pessimism here by no means exaggerated or
unrealistic. This Poem treats as a journey as a
metaphor for life. In this journey the poet talks about
various difficulties that lead to a sense of futility
(useless). The last line of the Poem “Home is where we
have to gather grace”, implies that redemption has to
be sought either through the world or in one’s own
mind.

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