Hybridization of the Self, Colonial Discourse and the Deconstruction of Value Systems

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STUDIES

Department of Humanities

Hybridization of the Self, Colonial Discourse and the Deconstruction of Value Systems

A Postcolonial Literary Theory Perspective of Literature inculpating Colonialism

Brian Burns

2021

Student thesis, Bachelor degree, 15 HE English

ENG804

Supervisor: Iulian Cananau

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to provide a perspective on literature inculpating colonialism using postcolonial literary theory and method. The subject material incorporates four novels studied during the literature modules for the English course at Högskolan Gävle (HIG). The four novels combine to highlight various issues that affect the Self-identity through

hybridization and colonial discourse as well as the detrimental nature of the colonial project for indigenous value systems during the period of colonialism. There is also application of theories and concepts raised in academic literature from within and outside the curriculum of HIG. The use of the postcolonial literary methodology provides a critical perspective of the aforementioned literature while implementing theories associated with that movement such as hybridity and the redefining of borders as well as focusing on the social, cultural, political and religious impact of the coloniser’s activities in the colonies as raised in the novels.

The most significant findings of this essay include the roles of isolation and disconnection within the colonial project and the subsequential effects on the colonised and their

descendants. There are findings and observations of the level of strategic application of universalistic colonial discourse and the intrinsic application of the language used in the objectification of the indigenous and the subjugation of their value systems. The role of perception is also highlighted including findings on the social implications for the colonies inhabitants, both dissident and conformist, raised within the chosen literature and this essay.

The essay also examines the application of various strands of literary theory incorporated within postcolonialism including poststructuralism and psychoanalytic criticism as well as anthropology material.

The conclusion of this essay culminates with the conflicting interpretations of progress as a universalism that counters the theories of postcolonialists and poststructuralists and their subsequent refusal to succumb to literature’s prevalence. The subjectivity of the postcolonial literary theorist and the self-imposed parameters restrict the interpretation of the colonial and postcolonial literature. The aforementioned progress defined by improved standards of health, education and social justice is lacking in presence in both the postcolonial literature and the accompanying literary theory counterpart. Subsequently, the disconnected voice of isolation and the split/double identity take precedence over higher standards of living and the appreciation of access to improved human rights and social justice within postcolonial society.

Table of Contents

Introduction …… ……….………Page 3 Postcolonial Theory and Method ……….Page 5 The Profanation of Indigenous Value Systems………..……… Page 9 Hybridization of the Postcolonial Self………...Page 15 Postcolonial Borders and Boundaries………..… Page 20 The Postcolonial Voice of Isolation and Disconnection……….Page 23 Conclusion………...Page 25 Works Cited ………Page 27

Introduction

The role of the colonial project in creating a new type of hybridity within the postcolonial society has been addressed fundamentally within the sphere of postcolonial critical theory and method. This essay will attempt to address the role of the colonizer within the colonies and the long-term effects of the colonizer’s actions for the indigenous cultures at their source from a literary perspective. Using postcolonial theory and method, this essay will focus on the novels Crossing the River (1993) by Caryl Phillips, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), The Color Purple (1983) by Alice Walker and David Malouf’s

Remembering Babylon (1994). The aforementioned novels incorporate the direct impact of the colonizer on the native peoples and their communities within the postcolonial narratives.

They also elevate the subsequent diverse consequences for indigenous value systems

including religion and native family structures. Consequently, the new hybridity that occured will be assessed and critically analyzed as well as the composition and the significance of the colonizer’s discourse structure. The attributed effect on the Self for both the individual and the group is also examined. The hybridization that occurs during the colonial project’s establishment and reidentification of borders and boundaries that subsequently appears in the various colonies globally is perhaps the longest-lasting effect of the colonial project.

The examination of the chosen literature will attempt to retrace the endemic racial, social and cultural factors incorporated by postcolonial writers into their respective texts. The subject matter of the chosen novels illustrates the dynamic factors that combine to create a network of postcolonial cultural and social issues that are directly connected to the colonial project. The reading of the literary texts from a postcolonial perspective reveals colonial discourse from the periods addressed in the narratives and highlights a predetermined agenda that perpetuates the collective ratification of stereotypes on the part of the colonial society.

Theories and methods developed and presented by postcolonialists including Homi K.

Bhabha, Edward D. Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Gilroy and Gauri Viswanathan amongst others, will be applied to the chosen examples of postcolonial literature along with relevant academic material such as John McLeod’s Beginning Postcolonialism as well as anthropological input from Clifford Geertz. The intention of incorporating the various representations of attitudes and concepts that could be considered fundamentally aesthetic into the essay is an attempt to illustrate the diverse foundations upon which the

postcolonialism method and theory is constructed, and as a result, strands of

poststructuralism, Marxism and psychoanalysis are detected within the movement’s writings and are addressed within this essay.

Throughout the essay there will be several references to ‘discourse’, possibly preceded by ‘colonial’ or ‘coloniser’. The essential role of language in assuming and

maintaining power is reflected in the discourse within a (post)colonial context. Thus, there is analysis of the construction and the strategic application of the colonial discourse which requires in-depth linguistic research that is supported by postcolonial theory. The compromise of native value systems and the influence of implemented western systems, reaffirmed by the coloniser’s discourse, results in the Self-reidentification of the colonised.

Recognition of the role of colonial internalisation and the various stages implemented by the coloniser is required in order to comprehend the agency of the postcolonial writer and theorist. Identification of the loss of the native voice and the resulting isolation and

disconnection are also addressed within the essay. The elevation of that native voice within contemporary postcolonial literature and literary theory is a core element of the postcolonial movement and forms the crux of the literature associated with the movement and the critical theories that are constructed and applied. The emergence of postcolonial borders and

boundaries, both internal and external are also examined within this essay. The boundaries are implicit within the categorisation of the indigenous peoples that occurs within the colonies. The subsequent colonial discourse that is constructed incorporates universalism.

The deconstruction of that universalistic discourse and the production of a new postcolonial discourse is the working objective of the postcolonial literary movement and will also be discussed in this paper.

Included in the essay are the relevant individual accounts of the plundering,

appropriation and forced acquisition that occurred during the colonial project with examples given from the chosen literature. This topic has received comprehensive academic and

historical attention and there exists a large volume of documentation. As such, there is neither the requirement nor the necessity to address this topic in more detail; however, the absence of any mention of this major motivation of the colonial project within an essay on the colonial project from a postcolonial perspective would appear as an oversight if not addressed.

Finally, the highlighting of the isolation and disconnection that has occurred as a direct consequence of the colonial project, and identified and instilled within the literature produced within the postcolonial movement, is focused upon. The enforced racial, social, cultural and religious abandonment of millions of colonized peoples has resulted in a mass separation of tribes from their heritage and ancestral sources. The resulting voice of isolation

and disconnection is abundant in the postcolonial texts and is an active catalyst for the critical literary theory associated with that movement.

Postcolonial Theory and Method

The emergence of postcolonialism critique and related insights in the 1980s/1990s and the resulting movement to reclaim one’s own heritage and identity saw the rejection of universalism, culminating in the erosion of colonialist ideology in various forms, including historical texts and agenda-driven accounts. The recognition of the role of colonial discourse within literary texts incorporating racial, social, cultural and political subjugation to the detriment of the non-white and non-European, resulted in the development of postcolonial critical writers, groups and entities. The role of postcolonial criticism involved creating awareness of representations of the non-European as exotic or the immoral ‘other’ (Barry 187) and the highlighting of the colonizer’s texts incorporating a language that is

‘permanently tainted’ (Barry 188). The role of language in the colonial project is thus identified as being singularly critical amongst postcolonial writers, who themselves, identify as hybrids combining ‘primarily African or Asian forms, supplemented with European- derived influences’ (Barry 189).

The divergence from previous literary critical movements and the creation of a new critique and method, directly linked to the colonial project and the consequences thereof, is influenced by concepts presented within those prior literary critical movements. Elements of Poststructuralism and Marxism appear in Postcolonialism as an undercurrent, as does

Psychoanalytical theory. The hybridity of the theory itself is mirrored by the application of the aforementioned diverse critical concepts. The hybrid/double identity of the individual and the group is a direct result of cross-cultural interactions and is represented in the

aforementioned four chosen novels of interest. The re-occurring themes and structures within the four novels reveal a repetitive cycle of having to adopt and adapt to be adept. This

concept as illustrated by Barry suggests a three stage process whereby firstly, the writers in the colonies reproduce a literature that consciously uses or adopts the template of the European coloniser with its perceived ‘universal validity’. The second stage forms a hybrid adaption of European structures encapsulating African subjects, whilst the third stage represents the assumption of the colonial writer progressing from a student to an

‘independent Adept’, no longer subject to the requirements of European norms or

prerequisites (Barry 189). Consequently, the colonial writer’s literary journey requires the

adoption of the universally valid colonial literature prior to the adaption of the content and context to reveal native subjects. The final phase of the native colonial writer assuming the role of an aforementioned independent Adept, reneges on the norms associated with the European or coloniser’s structures. Thus, the literary progression takes on a fluid and culturally diverse agenda leading to a fundamental repositioning of the signifiers and the signified within the texts, explaining the ‘great attraction of post-structuralism and deconstruction for the postcolonial critic’ (Barry 189).

The consequences for the postcolonial Self-identity due to the colonial project, both individually and collectively, also need to be addressed. Essentially, Clifford Geertz’s study

‘Of Cocks and Men’ highlights the symbolic expression of the ego or Self on the part of the native Balinese men through their relationship with the fighting fowl and the significant role pertained in the men’s daily lives and indigenous value systems. According to Geertz, there is: ‘Aesopian representation of the ideal male Self, sociologically it is an equally Aesopian representation of the complex fields of tension set up by the controlled, muted, ceremonial, but for all that deeply felt, interaction of those Selves in the context of everyday life’ (Geertz 73). Similarly, the understanding and the representation of the Self on the part of the

colonized within their native culture, and subsequently, within the postcolonial community is paramount for postcolonial writers. The coloniser’s misappropriation of the Self-identity, due to the subjugation of native rituals and their importance in Self-identity reinforcement

amongst the indigenous peoples as highlighted by Geertz, is addressed and critically deconstructed by the postcolonial theorists.

Accordingly, the impact of language, first and foremost on the part of the colonizer, and later for the postcolonial writers (or Collective Self), is addressed by Homi K. Bhabha and the Birmingham Group. They describe the process of ‘reading colonial discourses as endlessly ambivalent, split and unstable, never able to install securely the colonial values they seemed to support’ (McLeod 27). Indeed, Bhabha’s critical theories presented in The

Location of Culture (1994) combined with E.W. Said’s Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1993) as well as G.C. Spivak’s A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999), would form a triumvirate that would lay the foundations for postcolonial theory as a discipline in its own right. The identification and subsequent analysis of hybridity, definition of Self and the role of language are inherent within postcolonial theory and method, beginning with the various forms of adoption from the coloniser and eventually leading to literary protest (social, cultural and political) and the

‘subversion of hybridity’ (Bhabha). The indoctrination on the part of the coloniser and the

ensuing conflict between the signifier and the signified is symbolic of the fundamental issues addressed within postcolonialism. Reinforcement of the colonised Self-identity was

established through the use of cultural and social interactions that consisted of the imposed foreign borders and boundaries, implicit and explicit, and the diversification of groups on racial and social grounds, within the new colonial society.

Ultimately, the role of commerce accompanied by the threat of military action provided the colonial project with its prime motivation. This included the appropriation of slaves and the plundering of natural resources including precious minerals and raw materials.

The primary task of the postcolonial writer to re-examine and re-evaluate the texts, discourse and language propagated by the western powers, forms the crux of the postcolonial

movement’s narrative on the aforementioned plundering and slave trade and the subsequent coloniser’s description thereof. The critical importance of this re-examination and re-

evaluation of the colonial texts for the postcolonial movement is understood when confronted with what Fanon referred to as ‘unqualified assimilation’ (McLeod 179). Consequently, natives were inspired by the dominant trends in the discourse and texts of the colonising power and attempted to copy or reproduce it to the detriment of their native culture. The language and the ideology of the coloniser rely on the superiority/inferiority dynamic i.e. all other races are inferior to one’s own race, which inherently determines that the colonial project is marked by systematic racism. The essentialist concepts of race and ethnicity in humanity are reclassified by the coloniser’s discourse i.e. non-humans, lesser-human indigenous, outcasts etc. The emasculation of native men during the colonisation process reveals the coloniser’s narrative to be void of the morals and attitudes that they apply to their own race. Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (Pluto 1952), based upon his clinical psychiatric experience, focused on the detrimental effect for the individual and Self-identity as a result of subjugation due to skin colour and race. Varying negative connotations and definitions on the part of the coloniser including ‘peculiar, an object of derision, an aberration’ are

representative of the reduction of the ‘human subject’ to an ‘object’ (McLeod 22). The fundamental power of language results in the sense of Self being questioned and split due to the internalisation (discussed in more detail later in this essay) and the classification that takes place concerning the individual and the collective.

The systematic classification of individuals and groups was a prevalent occupation during the 19^th century which saw the restructuring of society based on class

(Working/Upper), skin colour or race. The maintaining of class and societal structures was dependent on the objectification of people in order to prevent any perceived threat to the

status quo. The lack of respect and understanding for the existing social frameworks of the indigenous peoples would eventually lead to subsequent anti-colonial dissidence, referred to by Fanon as the ‘fighting phase’ i.e. the empowerment of native intellect would lead to a reinterpretation, reformation and medication of cultural/spiritual resources to further a sense of people’s nationhood and independent consciousness (McLeod 115). Aimé Césaire’s poem Le Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal published in 1939 is a graphic example of this anti- colonial, postcolonial rebellion, pleading for an end to the subservience (with respect to the white French colonisers) on the part of the black population of Martinique and demanding unification and recognition of their own Self-identity as a people with a unique historical and cultural background and collective identity. The decolonisation process that Césaire and his contemporaries (Leopold Senghor, Senegal) instigate, is the precursor to the postcolonial movement in (re)establishing Self-identity and removing the physical, metaphorical and textual chains that had been imposed on the indigenous peoples by the western colonisers.

Césaire’s poem calls on Jews, Hindus and black people from all over the world to unite in their disobedience and rejection of western-imposed systems that denigrate the language and identity of the natives in their own lands. The colonial-based, discourse structures that continue to exist in postcolonial society had been integrated on all levels including political, social, cultural and judicial. The postcolonial writer attempts to challenge and debunk these colonial-inspired structures in order to redefine the norms and ethics of historical and contemporary literary texts and their universalism.

Consequently, postcolonial criticism determines that the universalism inherent within literary writings prior to the appearance of this new critique in the 1990s must be rejected and that the ‘white, Eurocentric norms and practices (…) being promoted by sleight of hand’

(Barry 186) should be exposed for their relegation of all other marginalised, ethnic and minority groups. The universalism that binds the colonial texts and literature is seen by postcolonial critics to be proof of the colonial discourse and of the coloniser’s agenda.

Instances of abstractness within the texts require active reading on the part of the postcolonial critic in order to reveal the implicitness of universalism within the periodic literature.

Subsequently, the tendency for the postcolonial movement to invoke post-structural, philosophical or psychoanalytical theory when deconstructing colonial literary texts. The postcolonial theorist is challenged to unearth knowledge or factual information, thus resulting in partial conjecture which can be interpreted as per Nietzsche’s summation: ‘there are no facts, only interpretations’ (Barry 61).

The anti-universalism element that exists at the core of the postcolonial movement avails of the ‘decentring’ theory put forward by Derrida in his 1966 lecture, ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’ (Barry 64). The centres and norms that had existed throughout the colonial project (and ultimately from the Renaissance until the world wars, holocaust and scientific developments) had ensured that the white, western norms and standards combined to form a moral, ethical, religious and racial centre. This ideology of centre accompanied the coloniser during conquests in Africa and Asia and provided the conquistadors with a pre-existing doctrine that justified the colonial incursions and colonial discourse that were undertaken to manipulate the indigenous peoples and their territories.

Derrida’s theory stated that Eurocentric absolutes concerning time, space, religion and humans, that had been prevalent during the colonial project, began to be questioned during the twentieth century due to the emergence of artistic, intellectual and literary movements. As a result, the universe assumed a ‘decentred’ state lacking any authoritative centre composed of agenda-driven norms or standards, essentially rendering universalism defunct. The importance and relevance of this theory for the postcolonialism movement is self-evident.

Subsequent to the establishment of the decentring or anti-universalism theory, and its

application within diverse intellectual and artistic movements including postcolonialism, the eventual focus would shift to literary texts produced during the colonial period and prior to the moment of decentralisation. This culminated in the colonial discourse being examined, re-read and interpreted from a postcolonial perspective. Deconstruction of the colonial discourse and literary texts from the period results in the ‘previously regarded as unified artistic artefacts shown to be fragmented, self-divided, and centreless’ (Barry 65). Thus, the role of the postcolonial writer counteracts the disunity and inconsistencies of the colonial texts and discourse with postcolonial literary texts that provide an all-encompassing

perspective. Subsequently, there was the inclusion of the native’s insights and opinions into the subject matter, whilst also representing the perspective of the coloniser from a

postcolonial viewpoint. Ultimately, incurring the removal of the agenda and perspective of universalism from the literary text.

The Profanation of Indigenous Value Systems

In Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the spiritual, moral and social elements of life are closely interwoven and consistently reinforced through rituals. The rituals, traditionally performed as great feasts, involved the whole Igbo community where each individual had a

role to enact: ‘Umuofia was in festival mood. It was an occasion for giving thanks to Ani, the earth goddess and source of all fertility…she was the ultimate judge of morality and

conduct…she was in close communion with the departed fathers of the clan whose bodies had been committed to earth’ (Achebe 35). The examination of the role of the ritual and its importance for native value systems in forming the culture of an indigenous group as an assemblage of texts is addressed by Geertz. His examples of interpretation naturae from the Middle Ages attempting to read nature as Scripture and Nietzsche’s attempt to treat value systems as ‘glosses on the will to power’, both illustrate precedents of the notion of a text beyond written and verbal material (Geertz 83).

As such, the role of value systems including unwritten texts is incorporated into Achebe’s narrative as he describes the impact of the coloniser and the accompanying Eurocentric value systems in the form of judiciary, military and religion. Initially, the

religious men are interpreted by the tribe as a strange and foreign entity that imposes itself on the lives of the community: ‘The arrival of the missionaries had caused a considerable stir in the village of Mbanta’ (Achebe 136). The subsequent detrimental effect on the indigenous value system can be seen in the downfall of the Egwugwu tribe which results in the

ascendancy of the Efulefu tribe. Simultaneously, the emerging doubts for Nwoye, including spiritual disillusionment, play a significant role in his subsequential attraction to the

coloniser’s value system of religion i.e. Christianity. Achebe’s postcolonial literary

illustration of the colonist’s strategic approach of compromising and subjugating the native rituals with westernised systems of religion and spirituality, invokes the primary impinging of the indigenous societal structures.

The rudimentary disruption and inevitable questioning of the native norms and values becomes apparent. The graphic progression for Okonkwo’s son Nwoye when Ikemefuna provides him with a different perspective on life outside the village results in a new

independence of thought. Old village folk tales took on a new meaning: ‘Even those which Nowoye knew already were told with a new freshness and the local flavour of a different clan’ (Achebe 33). Essentially, the occurrence of objectivity and self-awareness for Nwoye will lead him to experiment with the new white people and their revelations about a God that will satisfy his hunger for knowledge and spiritual development. The ‘poetry of the new religion’ (Achebe 139) will invariably lead to the compromise of the existing structures, morals and attitudes that have survived for centuries.

The spiritual, moral and social elements of village life that had been closely

interwoven and consistently reinforced through rituals were now at risk and the consequences

thereof are inherent in postcolonial writings. Ultimately, the first seeds for the new hybridity at the source are sown and the narrative elaborates on the attraction of the new religion for those who feel alienated or isolated from the village or society: ‘But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son….it was the poetry of the new religion….he felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul’ (Achebe 139). The introduction of Nwoye to this new spiritual language combined with a pre-existing insecurity concerning the definition of Self, results in the initial hybridization of the

colonised by the coloniser in their native land. There is a similar experience for Okonkwo with the construction of the church in the village and a realisation that it is the beginning of the end for life in the village as the tribe used to know it. Equally, the consequences for any tribes-person being disruptive or non-aligning with the new colonial status quo are apparent in Things Fall Apart. Initially, the elites of the Umofia tribe are naïve and ignorant in relation to the white man’s agenda, but they succumb to the truth eventually by spending time in jail, being beaten, humiliated and forced to pay bail. The process of colonialism ensures that those indigenous value systems that ensured the survival and growth of individuals and

communities throughout Africa were now being tested, and in some cases, dismantled and deconstructed.

In the postcolonial text of Caryl Phillips, ‘The Pagan Coast’ in Crossing the River marks the first journey of three ‘siblings’ over 250 years and across three continents. The voyage of Nash Williams to the dark continent is described by The American Colonization Society as something that would benefit both nations, with ‘America removing a cause of increasing social stress, and Africa would be civilized by the return of her descendants, who were now blessed with rational Christian minds’ (Phillips 9). This declaration of mutual benefit belies much in the attitude of the society of the slaver and the ignorance concerning the hybridity of Nash and the fact that America, and not Africa, is his home. There is also the inherent disregard for the pre-existing indigenous value systems. The years that have passed since his ancestors were stolen/sold from Africa to the West have ensured that Nash is as foreign to the natives on the Pagan Coast as any white man and he is actually referred to as white by the local Liberians. The lack of attention for the indigenous people and their religion and culture is reinforced by the perceived benefit of bestowing Christianity upon them. The condemnation of the native African religious practices and value systems through the use of the Bible by the Christian missions is a reoccurring theme in the chosen postcolonial

literature. The supposed enlightenment of the hedonistic indigenous tribes is preponderant as

a justification for the initial foreign presence, and ultimately in the case of the British, the colonisation of the continent.

In Things Fall Apart, the first converts provide a telling introspective on the power of the combination of biblical education and ancestral knowledge. Okonkwo’s return from exile coincides with a drastic impact on his village’s spiritual life in a relatively short space of time due to colonialism. He has gone from someone who ‘had clearly washed his hands and now he ate with kings and elders’ (Achebe 8) to becoming the subject of a colonial power and bound to western religious, social and cultural entrapments, or as Barry describes it:

‘spreading the benefits of Western civilization and saving native peoples from their own perceived barbarism’ (Barry 24). Another example of the colonial implantation of western ethics on indigenous value systems is provided by Gauri Viswanathan in India where education on the part of the British coloniser is not just seen as intellectual development but also moral and ethical progressiveness. Viswanathan states in his Masks of Conquest:

Literary Study and British Rule in India, that opposition to the denigration of Indian religious beliefs and structures was vast and swift and the reaction on the part of the coloniser was to spread the western ‘Christian morality indirectly through the teaching of English literature’

(McLeod 164). In principle, students in India were being educated in a coded system of values understood to be Christian and inherently representative of the identity of the colonising nation and its assumed universal validity.

The ethical validity of the black American missionaries project in Africa arises in Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple. On realising that they were helping a native people who did not ask for help, Samuel and Nettie understand that they replicate the behaviour of the colonisers and their colonial discourse. The realisation and admission comes during a

conversation with the character Aunt Theodosia as she recalled receiving a medal from King Leopold. During the discussion Samuel declares that ‘they [the Olinka] hardly seem to care whether missionaries exist……..they never asked us to come’ (Walker 214). On replying to Nettie’s request not to be bitter, Samuel concludes that ‘it’s worse than unwelcome…the Africans don’t see us. They don’t even recognise us as brothers and sisters they sold’ (Walker 214). This admission on the part of Samuel confirms the self-perception of his role in the colonial project and a self-realisation on the part of the black missionaries in Africa.

Essentially, Nettie has assumed a ‘mode of representation’, fundamental in colonialism and accompanied by the language that incorporates ‘a set of assumptions about the proper order of things that is taught as truth or reality’ (Barry 38) as illustrated by her character’s summary of Africa: ‘Today the people of Africa – having murdered or sold into slavery their strongest

folks – are riddled by disease and sunk in spiritual and physical confusion. They believe in the devil and worship the dead. Nor can they read or write’ (Walker 124). Symbolically, the postcolonial narratives demonstrate the systematic profanation of the indigenous value systems on the part of the coloniser. Ultimately, the re-education process concerning the indigenous peoples on the part of the coloniser would manipulate religious texts and the Christian missionaries teachings to expand the creation of colonies interspersed with imposed education in the form of western literary texts, all of which compounded and perpetuated the western agenda.

Concerning the effect of the western agenda for native women and native family structures and their value systems, the epistolary method used in The Color Purple allows insight into the two main characters’ thoughts and feelings concerning the issues of

colonialism and the consequences for indigenous women and families. Two women, Celie located in the Deep South of the USA and Nettie in Africa, are living in two distant locations affected directly and indirectly by colonialism. Epochal norms, attitudes and values in both locations are ever-present in the writings of the two sisters. As the sole female protagonist in the selected literature of this postcolonial genre, Nettie provides insight into the female perspective on the topics addressed within the context of the colonial discourse. According to Hazel Carby, the colonial project on the part of the British empire involved the

deconstruction and interruption of existing native familial structures. Carby further details the attempts of the coloniser to ‘destroy kinship patterns that were not modelled on [western]

nuclear family structures, disrupting in the process, female organisations that were based upon kinship systems which allowed more power and autonomy to women than those of the colonising nation’ (Carby 224). Nettie’s first-hand account adds gravitas to the manifestation of the colonial project and the effects on native familial structures and the pre-existing female role, or as McLeod describes it, ‘the imposition of a homogenous identity on ‘Third World’

women without any regard to the historical and cultural differences which inevitably exceed this category’ (McLeod 215). This disruption and dismantling of kinship patterns and redetermination of the role of women had fundamental consequences for the ideology and identification of the Self amongst the indigenous. The ensuing encroachment of native structures with western-based value systems leads to conflict in the home of the colonised.

The repression of native systems that had survived generations results in the systematic indoctrination of Eurocentric systems of thought. Observations on the part of the coloniser concerning women and their role in native society lead to ‘scientific truths’ being developed and widely distributed. Edward Said suggests that western travellers rarely tried to learn

about, or from, the native peoples they encountered, instead they: ‘recorded observations based on commonly held assumptions about the Orient…these observations were presented as scientific truths that, in turn, functioned to justify the very propriety of colonial

domination’ (McLeod 24). Tellingly, the prior life-experience as a black girl in the Deep South doesn’t prepare Nettie for the recognition that she has become a tool of colonialism in the land of her ancestors. Whilst in conversation with the character Olivia (a missionary’s daughter), Nettie lays out the coloniser’s roadmap and the rift between Nettie’s western ideals and the Olinka’s patriarchal mindset: ‘You will grow up to be a strong Christian woman…Someone who helps her people to advance. You will be a teacher or a nurse. You will travel. You will know many people greater than the chief’ (Walker 142).

Consequentially, a dissident voice appears amongst the natives in The Color Purple as

Tashi’s father in the Olinka village expresses anti-colonial sentiment when confronting Nettie concerning the presence of the missionaries in the village and their agenda: ‘You Christians come here, try hard to change us, get sick and go back to England, or where you came from’

(Walker 146). This voice of dissidence within the texts of the postcolonial writer emerges from settings and environs that are predominantly controlled by the colonial powers-that-be.

Nevertheless, the single native anti-colonial voice in the narrative adds literary impact to the sense of struggle and hopelessness that the female and male natives encounter, both with the coloniser and subsequently, within their own tribe.

The perspective of Nettie concerning colonisers and colonialism is provided by her first-hand experiences of the direct social consequences for the Olinka village as the colonial powers destroy their fields and forests to build infrastructure that benefits their own business interests. Tellingly, the letter-writing between Nettie and Celie exposes those very changes in cultural norms and attitudes in Africa. The achievement of the native’s complicity spurring a

‘sense of self-worth and material benefit through their participation in the business of Empire’ (McLeod 45) is symbolised by the initial positive native reaction to a new road (constructed on behalf of an English rubber company) being built towards the Olinka village before the tribe realises belatedly that it will consume their village entirely. This example of initial colonial expansion will subsequently lead to a creation of nations and the ‘construction of otherness’ combined with the design and implementation of a ‘deep, horizontal

comradeship’ resulting in a mode of ‘internal colonialism for native peoples, whose language, representation and values are dismissed as parochial to the (new) nation defined largely in white settlers’ terms’ (McLeod 147). The observations of Nettie while working in the Olinka village reinforces the importance of the pre-existing social structures of the tribespeople prior

to colonialism and the inevitable fallout subject to the compromise and profanation of the native structures and value systems. The postcolonial description of the construction of a tarmac road through the village and the acquisition of the Olinka territory by a rubber manufacturer in England clearly illustrates the agenda of the coloniser during the colonial project.

In concluding, the journey that the character Nettie undertakes, incorporates being a descendent of slavery in USA and traveling to its source as a black missionary, leading to her first-hand account of the activities of the colonisers on the African continent. Her

observations concerning the role of English missionaries, and their plundering of various colonies, sheds light on the activities of the coloniser: ‘And the things they brought back! We spent a morning in one of their museums and it was packed with jewels, furniture, fur carpets, swords, clothing, even tombs from all the countries they have been. From Africa they have thousands of vases, jars, masks, bowls, baskets, statues’ (Walker 124). The plundering that occurs during the colonial project is accompanied by the previously illustrated colonial tactics, strategies of indoctrination and the imposition of Eurocentric value systems upon the native peoples, and is omnipresent in postcolonial literature and subject to postcolonial critical theory. The long-term effects of the subjugation of indigenous value systems and the introduction of western-based systems lead to a new hybridization of cultural beliefs, social values and religion amongst the colonized. This hybridization of the Postcolonial Self as a collective is subject to critical analysis on the part of postcolonial critics and results in motivation and inspiration for postcolonial writers.

Hybridization of the Postcolonial Self

The concept of hybridity is prevalent throughout postcolonial theory as McLeod presents it as ‘a way of thinking beyond exclusionary, fixed, binary notions of identity based on ideas of rootedness and cultural, racial and national purity’ (McLeod 254). The portrayal of the colonizer in Things Fall Apart provides an insight into the postcolonial interpretation of the intrusion on the indigenous culture and the initial stages of the hybridization process.

Initially, native derision and incredulity prevail, and the foreigners are provided with a piece of land known locally as the ‘Evil forest’, in order to build a church. The elders of the village presume that the foreigners will soon leave when inflicted by a curse in the forest: ‘The villagers were so certain about the doom that awaited these men that one or two converts thought it wise to suspend their allegiance to the new faith’ (Achebe 142). The ignorance on

the part of the villagers as to the colonial agenda of the missionaries and the white men, as well as the faith in their own native culture, unwittingly leads to the first steps towards hybridization and exposure to a cultural bridge departing from their thus-hither sheltered belief system and pre-existing identification of Self.

The actions of Okonkwo as illustrated at the conclusion of the narrative display his isolation and the contrast in relation to his role within the indigenous tribe who display knowledge of the white man’s agenda that will result in the Self hybridization. The

assumption that the murder of a coloniser will go unpunished due to his standing in the tribe and society is misplaced and contrasts with the initial reaction to mistrust the white man: ‘we should have killed the white man if you had listened to me’ (Achebe 185). The suicidal death of Okonkwo also confirms the resulting conflict of culture due to the intrusion of the

coloniser and results in the reduction of a leader within the tribe and society to someone that commits an evil against their native ideology: ‘it is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the Earth, and man who commits it will not be buried by his clansman. His body is evil’ (Achebe 196).

Accordingly, Althusser’s definition of interpellation and its role in the functioning of ideology can be applied to this section of the narrative. The process of interpellation is defined as how ‘individual subjects come to internalise the dominant values of society and think of their place in society in a particular way’ and it is identifiable throughout the colonial project, incorporating the native people’s Self-identity into the colonizer’s discourse and a

‘system of representation’ (McLeod 44). The representation of Okonkwo within the selected narrative above contrasts with the postcolonial theorist’s interpretation of the role of

interpellation and its application within the colonial project and ensuing texts. The actions of Okonkwo confirm his role as the sole member of the Igbo tribe that resists interpellation.

Symbolically, he commits a capital sin against his own value system and that of the new colonial order i.e. Christianity, thus demonstrating the non-internalization of western dominant values and simultaneously rejecting native values. The native’s internalisation of the western ideology on the part of the individual or the group is at the core of postcolonial theory and is a major contributory factor in the (re)identification of the Postcolonial Self. The Eurocentric depreciation of the native ideology and value systems that are intrinsic to the indigenous culture results in a void that is eminently replaced by the coloniser’s ideology.

This practice of ideology implantation is reinforced through literary texts, education and social etiquette. Thus, the introduction of conflict and insecurity by the coloniser to the native peoples in relation to their native ideology is central to the colonial project. Achebe’s

conscious decision to encumber the main protagonist with such a demise that rejects the tribe’s primal ideology contrasts with the insignificant lexicalisation of the same event as recalled by the coloniser, thus, displaying the simultaneous perspective of both the coloniser and the implied postcolonial author. The omniscient narrator illustrates the attitude of the District Commissioner through an account of the aforementioned incident. The narrative displays the death of the native and the ideological consequences as a mere minor detail in the foreseen future writings of the District Commissioner: ‘One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate’ (Achebe 197). The use of colonial literature and religious texts to propagate western civilisation’s systems of thought and a universally-validated superior identity entails indoctrination that is necessary for the development of the new colonial Self-identification process to commence.

Within the postcolonial text of Remembering Babylon by David Malouf, there is the graphic hybridization of the Postcolonial Self-representation of the character Gemmy as a lost soul in the wilderness, drifting into the world of the settler following a period amongst the native aboriginals. The fluidity of this double/divided identity is a ‘characteristic of the postcolonial writer [and] explains the great attraction which post-structuralism and

deconstruction have proved to be for the postcolonial critic’ (Barry 189). The fluidity

combined with the duality of Gemmy’s journey is representative of the hybridity omnipresent within poststructuralism and postcolonial critique. Due to exposure to the native cultures and traditions, both in Britain and Australia, Gemmy’s unique perspective as a character within the narrative is representative of the new continent of Australia in a postcolonial text and the hybridity that occurs as a result. His Self identifies with both the settlers and the native aboriginals but he will never be fully accepted by either. His mind-set is symbolic of the expression of the ‘numerous contradictions and multiple allegiances of which the

postcolonial writer and critic is constantly aware’ (Barry 189). There is instinctive awareness of the suspicious nature that the white men have concerning him, resulting in his refusal to inform the character Frazer as the aboriginal natives are observing them (Malouf 61). The subjectivity in his discourse is due to the lack of trust in the colonisers and is spurred on by his awareness (due to his hybridity) of their limited capacity to connect with their natural surroundings in the manner of the aboriginal people. The connection that the natives have with natural energy and the land results in a spiritual symbiosis between human and nature that is lacking on the part of the settlers: ‘He [Gemmy] was moving through a world that was completely alive for him…Mr Frazer saw nothing at all…..energy set off where his

[Gemmy’s] spirit touched the spirits he was moving through’ (Malouf 61). Ironically, two

people of the same ethnic group both born in the UK and both now living in Australia represent two very different sides of the new postcolonial Australian identity.

The poststructuralist perspective of the ‘complex Derridean-Foucauldian notion of textuality and fields of discourse’ (Barry 189) is indicative of the role of Gemmy’s character within the narrative. Gemmy has connected with, and lives through, a bond that has existed for thousands of years on the island while Frazer, encaged by his white British upbringing, is impervious to that intrinsic element of the native Australian identity. The hybridity

represented in the narrative is twofold. The combination of routes and roots sees Gemmy exposed to two worlds that encapsulate his acquired Self-ideology. The route taken by this character sees transcendence and dissolution of boundaries epitomised by language and texts utilised during the colonial project and highlighted within subsequent postcolonial theory.

Bhabha’s enthusiasm to use the ‘cultural and historical hybridity of the postcolonial world….as the paradigmatic place of departure’ (McLeod 264) could avail of Gemmy’s journey as a template. The interrelativity and interconnection of cultures on the path that this character has undertaken lead to a reconceptualising of Self-identity. Gemmy’s enforced multicultural perspective is indicative of the challenge for the postcolonial society as proposed by Caryl Phillips: ‘truly multicultural society is one which is composed of

multicultural individuals; people who are able to synthesize different worlds in one body and to live comfortably with these different worlds’ (A New World Order 279). The persistent conflict between the settlers and the aborigines, symbolised by the racial language used on the part of the settlers/colonisers, displays the fundamental racial, cultural and societal obstacles that confront such a multicultural postcolonial society. Therein lies the struggle to understand the emergence and existence of the new hybridized Postcolonial Self.

One ideological aspect with implications for the development of the Postcolonial Self- identity that reoccurs in the narrative of David Malouf is endurance. Endurance is key when it comes to the development of Gemmy’s Self representation in Remembering Babylon. The hybridization of his character might not be as spontaneous as Ellen McIvors whilst burying her children and realising that she is now an Australian and her home is where her dead children lie (Malouf 101). However, there is a realisation on the part of the character George Abbot of Gemmy’s unique ability to endure and survive horrendous conditions and treatment by his fellow settlers (and previously by the aboriginals) that provokes admiration: ‘He regarded Gemmy very differently now (Malouf 162)…there might be something after all in mere endurance’ (Malouf 163). Thus, Gemmy’s hybridization may also be witnessed through the change in perception of those around him. Essentially, as a result of his cultural

polyvalency, he assumes the role of the quintessential Postcolonial Australian. Progression from being referred to in animalistic terms initially, to being appreciated for the journey and the rites of passage he has persevered, results in his hybrid Postcolonial Self-identity. This recognition and admiration of endurance is ultimately a reoccurring theme in the postcolonial narrative and a core characteristic in the postcolonial Australian identity, both past and present.

The enduring postcolonial quest for colonised peoples, both native and non-native, to achieve ‘solidarity through difference’ is illustrated by the contrast in individual and

collective endurance that is required. The need to ‘draw upon resources and ideas of other peoples in different times and places in order to contest the continuing agency of colonialist, nationalist or racist discourses at various sites’ as highlighted by Paul Gilroy in his Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Verso 1993)(McLeod 267). Fundamentally, the challenge for the postcolonial writers is to draw upon the cacophony of hybrid cultures represented within one community in order to challenge and alleviate the agency of the Self- identified superior collective. The impediment of fundamental falsehoods, both historical and contemporary, within the discourse of the coloniser and resulting in the imposed

classification of the Self (individually and collectively) and subjugation of diversity.

Consequently, the literary movement’s motivation that necessitates dissection and analysis on the part of the postcolonial theorist and exposure by the postcolonial écrivain.

Accordingly, the nostalgic title of the Malouf novel, in remembering Babylon and the ultimate moment of transformation when one voice became many, illustrates when diversity and the confounding of language was made real as people were scattered abroad upon the face of the earth (Genesis 11:1–9). Symbolically, this is a biblical moment that could be seen as providing the origins of the various discourses that Gilroy refers to in his interpretation of diversity. Admittedly, in contrast, Gilroy suggests the positive attributes of diversity, the resulting hybridity and the need for racial solidarity in order to achieve progress. The transformation of one unified voice to many different languages could also be interpreted as the mass migration (or enforced deportation through slavery or otherwise) of colonised peoples globally. Essentially, in real terms Gemmy (thanks to his time spent with the aboriginals) is communicating with the one voice that has always existed i.e. spiritual communication between people and the land/nature and its energy in different forms. The

‘clear light around him’ (Malouf 61) allows his hybrid Self to slip between worlds, an interloper in all places, belonging to everywhere and nowhere. The sense of disorientation and dislocation is inherent with the rites of passage of his character but also those of the

settlers/colonisers. However, his complete sense of Self due to his diversity, and his ability to communicate with everyone and everything in a universal language, contrasts with the identity struggle that the settlers experience being limited by their restrictive colonial language and western social parameters.

The perpetuation of the colonial language in relation to native peoples served to reinforce the stigmatic-image of Self that their descendants would encounter in postcolonial society. Thus, the importance placed on decolonising the language by postcolonial writers such as Salmon Rushdie, who refer to the need for the language to be ‘remade in other images, if those of us who use it from positions outside Anglo-Saxon culture are to be more than artistic Uncle Toms’ (The Times, 3 July 1982, p.8). The perceived benefits for the indigenous peoples as a result of the colonial project such as language, surface intermittently within postcolonial literature as well as in literary texts and academic observations on the part of the coloniser. Although the role of language is not highlighted in Philips’ Crossing the River narrative, the historical context dictates that the majority of the slaves or former slaves sent to Africa would have been unable to communicate with the local natives in their regional dialects or languages. This further example of white, western-centred practice of mass

movements of natives from their homelands, and enforced hybridization of the Self, is endemically highlighted in the texts of the postcolonial movement. The progressive

hybridization of Self-identity on the part of the character Nash in ‘The Pagan Coast’, and the penultimate stages of adoption and adaption in order to transcend postcolonial borders and boundaries prior to his demise, is symbolic of the stages each non-native must encounter in a foreign setting as illustrated within a postcolonial narrative.

Postcolonial Borders and Boundaries

From the outset in ‘The Pagan Coast’, Edward Williams’s character is focalised to display the borders and boundaries existing within a white abolitionist’s support for the relocation of slaves to Liberia in the early 19^th century. The privately-funded American Colonial Society oversees the exportation of Nash to another continent despite his hybridity, and the role that it plays in his being part of society in America. According to Bhabha, the role of hybridisation and the crossing of ‘imagined border-crossings are as much a

consequence of migration as the physical crossing of borders’ (McLeod 252). The cerebral crossing of borders as illustrated by the postcolonial writer can be interpreted as equally disconnecting and isolating as the physical and geographical borders encountered. The

situation that Nash finds himself in towards the end of the narrative, including abandoning his Christian beliefs and going native, reveals the manifestation of hybridisation and the creation of a new cultural community combining the indigenous and the migrant. The cultural

boundary-crossing within the hybridised community is symbolic of the internal boundaries that are breached by the individual.

Significantly, there appears what Bhabha referred to as ‘incommensurable cultural temporalities’ (McLeod 254) in this section of the Phillips’ narrative including the revelation of the unheimlich in Nash’s decision to live as a native amongst the indigenous people in West Africa. This sense of interruption or disruption to the ‘received totalising narrative of the individual or group identity’ is what Bhabha defines as an ‘uncanny presence’ that has the potential to ‘disrupt the exclusive binary logic upon which a range of discourses – nationalist, colonialist, patriarchal – depend’ (McLeod 254). Phillips’ decision to portray Nash in this manner leads to a scenario that allows for the culmination of a hypothetical heritage that Nash might have had (there is no information or indication within the narrative to confirm if he or his ancestors originated in Liberia). The reaction of Edward Williams to the plight of Nash when he encounters the isolated village reveals the connection between the western slave-owner and his former slave/lover. Inherently, Nash’s conscious decision to expediate his last days amongst the indigenous tribe concludes with Edward struggling to understand this unheimlich decision of Nash to cross the imposed boundaries and refute the western and Christian belief-system, an ideology that had been imposed on him as a slave.

Prior to his untimely end, Nash repeatedly attempts to relay to his former

master/lover, the state of his plight in the historical setting that is the new state of Liberia in 1835 and the practical boundaries that exist there. Several letters contain information that reflect the plight facing the migrant Nash in his request for basic amenities including ‘shoes, stockings, tobacco, flour, sugar and other little trifles’ (Phillips 25). Items that previously would have been attained with relative ease, and had apparently become staple diet for Nash on the plantation in America, have now become exclusive goods in his new home. The shortage of basic necessities from the character’s daily existence once more symbolizes the lack of insight on the part of Edward and the American Colonial Society. They remove individuals whose collective identity adheres to life in America, with all the attributes accompanying that life, to a foreign land that lacks even the most basic fundamentals. The plot that revolves around the relationship between the two men and their coming to terms with the borders and boundaries between them results in a disconnection and isolation, both

from their previous homes but also from each other. The boundaries that now exist between the two characters are not uniquely physical. There is also an emotional detachment that McLeod describes as a requirement on the part of the individual to attend to that which is

‘incommensurable and unhomely in conventional systems of thought’ (McLeod 256). Those conventional systems of thought and their boundaries have been directly undermined by the colonial project and the imposed colonial discourse and as such, impacts directly on the relationships between individuals and groups.

The imposed colonial discourse that accompanies the subjugation of the native ideology and systems of thought, incorporating the equally important subliminal, is instrumental in establishing the borders and boundaries of the new Self-identity and the predetermined aberration of the ‘other’ within the colonial context. The construction of these boundaries that lead to disconnection and isolation on the part of the natives within the colonies is premediated and designed to embellish the superior/inferior dynamic created during the colonial expansion. The structures of the boundaries assume implicit and explicit forms. The explicit forms are essentially self-evident and consist of the installation of Eurocentric and western-based authoritarian, political, religious and social systems imposed on the native peoples. Use of military force and white judicial practices within an indigenous context provide the postcolonial movement with stark examples of explicit boundaries being imposed by the coloniser within the society of the indigenous peoples. The nature of the boundaries in an implicit form tends to be more subtle and discreet in design and

manifestation. The partially-revealed implicit narratives within the colonial cultural, social and literary texts divulge the existence of the universalistic ideology and the role that the native unwittingly assumes therein.

Interestingly, the use of focalisation through a homodiegetic narrator by Philips, enables the reader of Crossing the River to have an introspective insight into Edward and his boundary-crossing romantic feelings towards Nash: ‘Nash Williams, the boy he had brought from fields to the house, the boy who won his love, freely given, who would force on to him all the pain and confusion which finally proved too much for Amelia to bear’ (Phillips 58).

Ultimately, the romantic boundary that is exposed within this section of the narrative leans towards a question of sexual (im)morality within a social and historical context that pertains prerequisite legalities and ethical consequences. The sexual boundaries that were repeatedly crossed during the colonial project range from cultural differences concerning marriage and the number of wives permitted in an African context to the rape and the use of slaves in America to increase the inventory on the part of slaveowners. The sexualisation and

objectification of the African and Asian women during the colonial project coincides with the emasculation of the native men and the subsequent reidentification of the sexual boundaries as determined by the coloniser. Said’s observations in Orientalism (1978) that Western travellers reports of ‘moral laxity and sexual degeneration’ (McLeod 24) in the Orient develop stagewise from speculation to assumption to fact, would have had the desired effect of shocking the predominantly white, Christian, and in America’s case, puritanical peoples of the West. The process of gentrifying the supposedly, wild and savagely oversexualised natives would form a cornerstone within the colonial literary discourse. Thus, the sexual (and romantic) relationship between a white slaveowner and a black male slave in early 19^th

century America, as illustrated by Phillips in ‘The Pagan Coast’, would have crossed all social, ethical, moral and sexual boundaries.

The Postcolonial Voice of Isolation and Disconnection

Caryl Phillips’s novel Crossing the River attempts to retrace the disconnection between a people and their ancestral home: ‘You are beyond. Broken-off, like limbs from a tree. But not lost, for you carry within your bodies the seeds of new trees. Sinking your hopeful roots into difficult soil’ (Phillips 2). The difficult soil that the emigrant, refugee or migrant attempts to flourish in reflects the experience of the displaced when relocated within the postcolonial society. Phillips’ novel attributes the creation of the voice of isolation and disconnection to slavery, migration and emigration. Through the creation of a network of travels and journeys interwoven with issues such as bondage, internment, colonisation and social boundaries, the author provides relevant subject material for the postcolonial theorist.

Ultimately, the challenge of reconnecting the various travellers with a common voice and source is symbolic of the inclination for the recognition of the commonality amongst the displaced. The postcolonial hybrid identities that are in constant motion have been removed from any sense of singular identity incorporating fixed or binary ideals based on ‘ideas of rootedness and cultural, racial and national purity’ (McLeod 254).

The omnipresent themes of isolation and disconnection meander through ‘The Pagan Coast’ narrative with ironically, both Edward and Nash alone in the same isolated location in the jungle of Liberia. Edward’s insight concerning the plight of his former slave and lover in a desolate African village reveals his true feelings for Nash. The isolation and disconnection portrayed by the character Nash is similar to the sentiment and experience of those living within a ‘diaspora space’ (Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora 209). The re-evaluation of

identity and the Self in a context of fluidity and hybridity is tantamount to the location that various displaced peoples find themselves. The discourses of power within the postcolonial spaces contain agendas of legitimisation resulting in marginalisation and isolation similar to that experienced by Nash in Liberia. In contrast, the symbolism of the slaveowner being pitied by the Liberian natives who wondered ‘what evil spirits had populated this man’s soul and dragged him down to such a level of abasement’ (Phillips 70) is stark. Ironically, the evil spirit that the natives refer to is love, graphically depicting the clash of cultures and the resulting marginalisation when one group attempts to interpret the behaviour of another in a space populated by multicultural elements.

Another postcolonial literary theory, highlighted by Bhabha when referring to

‘accommodation without control’ in literary texts, is the example of the ghostly appearance of a young black girl in Cincinnati in 1873 in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), pointing to the unspoken history of the American slaves. Pointedly, McLeod expands: ‘unspoken alternative histories return to haunt the received history in which they find no voice’

(McLeod 255). Symbolically, this is what both Phillips with his fragmented novel and the postcolonial movement generally, attempt to ascertain and encompass. Essentially, the unspoken alternative history forms the conceptual and theoretical prerequisite for the postcolonial movement’s literary mission. The lack of voice on the part of the colonised native peoples and the displaced indigenous peoples within the received history has, combined with counter-universalism, enforced the descendants to individually and collectively rediscover and redefine that lost voice.

The Black Atlantic concept (coined by Paul Gilroy in his book, The Black Atlantic:

Modernity and Double Consciousness) examines further the idea of alternative histories, both spoken and unspoken and the impact on postcolonial communities. Gilroy’s preference is to focus on ‘transnational routes (to) provide a better way of thinking about black identities in the present than notions of roots and rootedness’ (McLeod 266), thereby connecting people through their present as opposed to their past. Indeed, Gilroy sees this as essential in order for the black community to create ‘solidarity through difference’ and avail of resources and ideas of postcolonial society to challenge the colonialist, nationalist and racist agenda and

discourse. Phillips’ narrative attempts to give a voice to millions of people and to create a transnational and transhistorical identity in contrast to Benedict Anderson who referred to a

‘deep horizontal comradeship…with notions of collectivity and belonging’ perception of nationhood and nationality (McLeod 82). To create and maintain the reinvigorated postcolonial identity is first to reject the imposed identity, through the use of postcolonial

criticism, bestowed upon it by generations of literature and literary theory that has reinforced and corroborated the enforced colonial Self-identity. In order for the ‘many-tongued chorus’

(Phillips 237) to continue to swell and continue to be heard, it must first speak. Phillips’

narrative strives to ensure that the chorus has an ancient voice or discourse, accepting the hybridity, and potently confident in the postcolonial Self-identity. The ancient voice of loss and longing identified by Phillips is poetically symbolized by the Langston Hughes lines:

‘I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers’.

Conclusion

In concluding, the essence of the colonial project resulting in the inspiration for postcolonial literature and theory can be summarised by the in-depth analysis of the

hybridization of the Self, the colonial discourse and the deconstruction of value systems. The activities of the coloniser set in process a predetermined chain reaction within the colonies.

Mass movements of peoples from their native homes to the coloniser’s countries have resulted in cultural, social, racial and political impact in postcolonial societies, both positive and negative. The postcolonial critics chosen for this essay have illustrated the dynamic factors that combine to create a network of postcolonial cultural and literary issues directly connected to the colonial project. The reading of literary texts from a postcolonial perspective reveals contradictory discourse on the part of the colonial writers and an agenda that

perpetuates the collective ratification of stereotypes. Significant symbolic assets within language and texts are applied in accordance with the manifesto of the empowerment of the western culture.

In contrast, the semiotic aspects of the language are revealed in a subliminal manner.

Similar to Lacan’s two realms, Imaginary (that of the child at the pre-linguistic, pre-Oedipal stage) and the Symbolic (representing a more cognitive interpretation of signifiers) (Barry 124), the colonised individual and collective undergo a transformation from a child-like pre- colonial innocence prior to the colonisation process, to an exacerbated (imposed) awareness of the Self attributed to signifiers that appear in the discourse of the coloniser. The

reaffirmation of the imposed identity amongst literary texts provides the individual and the group with a split or dual personality. The decolonisation of the texts and discourse

undertaken by the postcolonial theorists is the first step in attempting to reveal and realign the cultural and historical heritage of the displaced and disenfranchised. Reinvention of the

individual narrative is necessary in order for the hybrid society to progress beyond the assigned identity of the coloniser’s political, cultural and social systems of thought. The literary resistance on the part of the authors of the chosen novels for this essay, and the aforementioned postcolonial theorists, form the vanguard for such a movement with the resulting cultural, social and historical awareness being omnipresent and inherently integrated into postcolonial theory. The transformative agency of postcolonialism as a critical theory is subjective and open to debate. The fragmented nature of cultural studies within the field of postcolonial theory is indicative of the patchwork nature of the concept itself. The four novels chosen for this essay have each displayed a variety of issues that represent concepts and arguments under the umbrella of postcolonial theory and concur on common traits that reflect the critique of the established theorists within the movement. In attempting to highlight the relevant issues that find common ground in the selected narratives, reinforced by supporting arguments from the selected postcolonial and anthropological schools of thought, this essay has endeavoured to examine the roles of the hybridization of the Self, colonial discourse and the deconstruction of value systems within the colonial project from a postcolonial

perspective.