Post-colonial London - Essay Example

For instance, consider the position of Edward’s Said critique concerning the coercive structures of the Oriental knowledge paradigms without Michel Foucault. Alternatively, consider the interest of Bhabha in the split enunciation of ambiguity of colonial power signifiers and colonial discourse without Jacques Derrida (McLeod 127). Evidently, postcolonial criticism co-opts into the Western academy, thus fracturing connections with its adherents to the social realities expressed under the literature of concern.

This paper seeks to examine and analyze how postcolonial writing challenges hegemonic narratives about London, with reference to the literary works of Rushdie, Johnson, Naipaul, and Sam. Perhaps deserving for a field dominated by post-structuralism assumptions, contemporary criticism and critics tend to be self-referential, thus far less stimulating to read than authors of the yesteryears, their Western academy predecessors. This leaves the readers with the problem of ameliorating the present situation.

A viable approach would be returning to the primary focus of any intellectual project: the suffering and acting of humans. Specifically, there is need to consider writers as they respond through literature to the problems of regaining and understanding a past distanced from them by dispossession and defeat. Drawing upon the works of Wilson Harris, contemporary historians in the second half of the twentieth century, critical and militant of imperialism in another sense fall victims to the very imperialism they seek to denounce, as the history they write does not incorporate an “inner time”.

By “inner time”, Harris refers to effacement of personal experience of human beings concerning history, with the consequences of an intellectual response based primarily on philosophical, sociological, and political categories. Contemporary terms, particularly those in the postcolonial field, demonstrate this point (Massey 74). These terms include diversity, the people, hegemony, subaltern, and power and discourse, all of which are empty of any personalized, direct human value. Consider the huge difference of reception and intention between now-formulaic calls for reading minority and postcolonial literature and this statement by Paul Ricoeur: “literary critics tell stories because human lives merit and need narration.

This particular remark is operational when referring to the necessity to save the history of the lost and the defeated. The entire history of suffering imposes calls and vengeance for narrative.” According to Ricoeur’s biographer, his philosophy of action creates problems as it preoccupies itself with the question of ‘what and why?’, thus excluding the question of ‘who’. This emphasis on action over actor is parallel in postcolonial literary criticism; for instance, Naipaul’s interest in postcolonial narration strategies inadvertently appears similar to the colonial discourse he seeks to critique.

In some of his works, he perceives individuals as objects on national history, or subjects in collective, Marxist sense, as people searching for mastery in their master. It is important to note that by master or colonialist, this paper essentially refers to London (Procter 23). To explain how literary textual elements encourage reader identification, there is need for emphasis on the distinction between utterance and statement. This distinction is important in understanding the dispossessed literatures, as it suggests a huge gap