Week 7 - Postcolonial Literature

1950s - Emergence of West African literature in English written by West Africans.

Postcolonial Theory

Key critical theories:

• psychoanalysis

• marxism

• feminism

Postcolonialism - primarily concerned with empire. The global inequalities, injustices, and imbalances produced by empire. Superiority and inferiority around race/nation/culture.

• Purpose:

  • re-evaluate imperial history

  • re-evaluate western literature

  • broaden canon of writers

‘The African Trilogy’ In Context 1880-1960

New Imperialism to De-colonisation

Berlin Conference 1884 - the ‘Scramble for Africa’

• move into ‘New Imperialism’ or ‘High Imperialism’

• move from ‘informal’ to more formal imperial control

• i.e. move from trading posts, protectorates and missionary work to establishment of Office of District Commissioner

Colonial Discourse

Glorification or justification of empire. Sanitises or overlooks the crimes and violence of empire. It takes the coloniser’s point of view.

Postcolonial Discourse

Reveals and condemns the crimes and violence of empire. It takes the point of view of the colonised. It gives a voice to those left voiceless.

Style

Orature

Fusion of oral storytelling and written form.

Features: sound and contours of orality (repetition and simple syntax, motifs, dialogue) contrasted with literate based on writing.

• proverbs: storehouse of shared communal knowledge, culturally specific, narrator uses proverbs - shares in world.

Syntaxis

Ornate, complex language.

Hypotaxis

Often lengthy sentence style full of co-ordinating and subordinate clauses.

Parataxis

Often shorter sentence structure with a spare style involving repetitions. Well-suited to oral vernacular style - how people actually speak.