Postcolonial Literature

“Hybridity”
 Hybridity is the mixture of two races, religions or cultures. It can be social, linguistic, religious etc. It is not
always a peaceful mixture.
 It was published in 1981. Saleem, Shiva and Parvati are the main characters in the novel. The story is about clash
between two religions.
 Cultural and religious hybridization starts with Saleem’s relationship with Parvati and Shiva.
 The first complication arises when they are mixed at the hospital and their religion and race are mixed. This
things shows that there is a lot of mixture of religion in India.
 Saleem and Shiva raise a battle against each other and try their best to gain power over each other.
 These three names are also connected with Hindu Mythology.
 There is also an attempt to merge the history of both British India and newly born India.
 History is also intermingled with realm of magic and charm.

Stylistics
“Direct and Indirect Characterization”
Indirect characterization is when the author describes the characters traits of his/her actions, speech, physical
appearance, thinking and other character’s response to the main character.

S: What character says?

T: What character thinks?

E: What other’s effect is?i

A: What character acts?

L: What character looks like?

Example:

Here, John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath shows a character’s personality indirectly. He doesn’t say that hitchhiker
Joad is a jobless and homeless and a poor laborer. He is a man without any purpose left with him.

‘Joad took a quick drink from the flask. He dragged the last smoke from his raveling cigarette and then, with callused
(rough) thumb and forefinger, crushed out the glowing end. He rubbed the butt to a pulp and put it out the window,
letting the breeze suck it from his fingers.’

Postcolonial Literature

Points from the Essay “On the National Culture” by Frantz Fanon
 Precolonial culture cannot be reclaimed: The recognition of a national culture and the right to exist is the favorite
issue of the intellectuals. Politicians place themselves in present and colonized intellectuals place themselves in the
past. Colonized intellectuals are aware of risk of getting trapped in western culture. They cannot agree with the recent
history and so they reclaim the past to restore the national culture.
 Why did the colonized intellectuals want to return to precolonial times and culture? Colonialism stripped
the natives of their culture and history. Colonizers distorted, disfigured and destroyed the past and the culture
of the colonized.
 Colonized culture took culture to the continental level. They were able to trace their past but at the same
time they had failed to trace their cultural past. Under colonialism, Africa was considered as a “den of savages”
that was cursed hated and evil on the continental level. In order to right this wrong, the colonized intellectuals
embraced “The Negro Culture” on the continental level.
 Black culture cannot exist on the continental level rather it should exist on the national level. Negro
literature is an example of Negritude. Negritude has expanded all the way to America such as Ghana, Senegal,
and Chicago and a “black world” is formed. Those who live in “Black World” share the similar thoughts.
African culture is a “dead end” to African intellectuals. African cultural society turns into cultural society of
black world and they include all the black diaspora. There are two section of people. The first section is of
Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and Leopold Senghor and Kenyatta. But on the level of racism they
had similar experiences and were looked upon as “The Others”. Therefore the black culture cannot exist in the
continental level rather it should exist on the national level.
 What is the concept of nation? Those without a nation suffer a psychological trauma. They are forced to
assume two identities.
 There are three developmental stages of a writer. At the stage one, the colonized must prove that they
have assimilated to the white culture. This stage is full of Symbolists and Surrealists. This stage is called
extolling the European culture. At the stage two, the writer goes back to the precolonial world and fails to
recollect his lost culture. He tries to go against the European culture. He feels alienated even on his own native
land. This phase is called Negritude. At stage three, the writer turns into a fighter and writes combat,
revolutionary and national literature. A nation exists because the struggle of the people not on the basis of its
culture.
 How does a colonized intellectual address his own kind? The language used by the colonized intellectual
is very much similar to the language used by the colonizers. When the colonized intellectuals try to return to
their culture they are like foreigners. They are aliens in their own land. They talk about nationality but they look
at The Third World as exotic. Culture cannot be simplified and that is why the colonized intellectuals are “out of
step”.
 As conclusion it can be asserted that a poet or a writer should first understand his alienation. The
colonized intellectuals are mesmerized by the mummified fragments. If a writer is wants to write for his
people using the past, he should open the doors to the future as well. He should come forward and retrace his lost
culture. So a unifying national culture is direly needed. Fighting for national culture is a fighting for the national
liberation. National culture is neither a folklore nor a gesture of words. It is a collective thought of the people to
describe, justify and extol the feeling of liberation.

Stylistics
Effect of Nature on Tess in “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”
Nature is the important element in Hardy’s novels and especially in “Tess” nature serves as a living
character and not for the background of the novel. Nature is not friendlier, almost in all of his novels, rather cruel
and crashing.
Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain.
Seduction Scene of Tess:
Hardy paints the bitter picture of life. He regards human beings as puppets in the hands of nature. In the seduction
scene, we see the major influence of nature. Nature welcomes its friend in the appointed place that is covered with
romantic atmosphere. Darkness and quietness is prevailed everywhere. Seduction is a sort of intoxication. No one
is willfully seduced. As Tess fell a victim to seduction, anyone would have been seduced under such romantic
circumstances. So, all the elements of nature contribute to make her seduced. As Shakespeare says:
As flies to wanton boys,
Are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
At Tallbathyas:
In Tolbathays, nature seems very friendly. The Angel-Tess affair wouldn’t have been so beautiful, but for its
being among nature. The atmosphere of Tolbathays is very pleasant. Angel proposes Tess in that romantic
atmosphere. Sometimes nature seems to share in reality. It is her reflection of human moods, feelings and
passions which are the percipient human mind observes in nature.
At Flintcomb Ash:
Flintcomb-Ash, on the other hand, is a barren region, reflecting the harshness of the work and the desolation of
Tess' life. The story ends in the equally mysterious Stonehenge region.

Stylistics
Heterodiegetic Narrative Point of View
Heterodiegetic narrative point view is when a piece of literature is narrated from the perspective of a 3 rd
person. The pronouns he, she, it, they and their cases are used for narration. It like a god who knows everything.
This is the most widely used narrative perspective in literary works. There are mainly three types of 3 rd person
narrative.

1. Third Person Omniscient Point of View:

The omniscient narrator knows everything about the story and its characters. This narrator can enter anyone’s
mind, move freely through time, and give the reader their own opinions and observations as well as those of the
characters. For example, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is told from a third-person omniscient point of view,
giving the reader full access to the main character, Elizabeth, as well as the characters others around her.

2. Third Person Limited:

This point of view (often called a “close third”) is when an author sticks closely to one character but remains in
third person. The narrator can do this for the entire novel, or switch between different characters for different
chapters or sections. This point of view allows the author to limit a reader’s perspective and control what
information the reader knows. It is used to build interest and heighten suspense.

3. Third Person Objective:

Third-person objective point of view has a neutral narrator that is not privy to characters’ thoughts or feelings.
The narrator presents the story with an observational tone. Ernest Hemingway employs this narrative voice in his
short story “Hills like White Elephants”. An unknown narrator relays the dialogue between a couuple as they
wait for a train in Spain. This point of view puts the reader in the position of a voyeur, eavesdropping on a scene
or story.

Application on a Piece of Literature:

 The narrator knows all about the historical events of the past. He knows the background of the downtrodden
people. The narrator can easily move between Paris and London.
 The narrative also has panoramic perspective of events. The narrator gives his comments and describes the
scenes in these words, “Every pulse and heart in Saint-Antoine was on high fever strain and at high fever heat.
Every living creature there, held life as of no account, and was demented with passionate readiness to sacrifice
it.”
 He knows thoughts of all the characters in the novel. He freely depicts what is going in different characters’
minds on different occasions. The narrator everything about the characters. He says:
“Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that
united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light
of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always.”

Stylistics
Commentary by the Author:
There are mainly four types of commentary in a piece of narrative work.
i. Interpretation
ii. Judgement
iii. Generalization
iv. Commentary on the Narration

Application of “Judgement” on a Piece of Literature:

Description of ‘Miller’ by Chaucer in “The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales”:

The Miller was chap of sixteen stone,

A great stout (having a large body) fellow big in brawn and bone.

He did well out of them, for he could go

And win the ram at any wrestling show.

Broad, knotty and short-shouldered, he would boast

He could heave (lift) any door off hinge (joint) and post,

Or take a run and break it with his head.

His beard, like any sow (an adult female hog) or fox, was red

And broad as well, as though it were a spade;

And, at its very tip, his nose displayed

A wart on which there stood a tuft (bunch) of hair

Red as the bristles (fur) in an old sow’s ear.

His nostrils were as black as they were wide.

His mighty mouth was like a furnace door.

A wrangler (noisy) and buffoon (a rude fool), he had a store

Of tavern stories, filthy in the main.

He was master-hand in stealing grain.

He felt it with his thumb and thus he knew

Its quality and took three times his due__

A thumb of gold, by God, gauge (estimate the amount) on oat!

He wore a hood of blue and a white coat.

He liked to play his bagpipes up and down

And that was how he brought us out of town.

Postcolonial Literature
Theme of Rebellion in the Play “The Tempest”:

One feature of Frantz Fanon’s theory is that colonial subjects sometimes rebel against the colonizers.
They want to get rid of the tyrannies of colonial powers but their rebellion is full of hesitations and ambiguities.
The play ‘The Tempest’ is a perfect example of the practice of colonialism on a distant land. The subject of the
island tries to repel the usurper but ultimately fails to put his plans into practice. Although Caliban who is the
subject tries his best to defeat his opponent yet he is very weak at it. On one side he struggles for freedom but on
the other side he is very happy when he finds his new master in the form of Stephano in spite of the fact the man
gives very humiliating comments on him. He calls him “man of fish and a servant monster etc.”

At this time he tries to get rid of Prospero with help of Stephano and the drunken butler. Areal informs
Prospero abut Caliban’s conspiracy. So Prospero sends him to tease them. In the end we see, Caliban ends in
complete failure.

Stylistics
Focalization:
Focalization is defined as a selection or restriction of narrative information in relation to the experience and
knowledge of the narrator, the characters or other, more hypothetical entities in the story world.

OR

The perspective from which a narrative is presented.

Explanation:
This term was introduced by Gérard Genette, a French literary theorist, in order not confuse it with another
literary term: narration. There’s an easy way to tell one term from the other: Narration is what’s told, and
focalization is what’s seen.

Narrator: Who speaks (to whom, in what situation, in what way?)

Focalizer: Who sees, hears, thinks, and feels?

There are three types of focalization:

1. Zero Focalization

In this type of focalization, the narrator has a “vision from behind”. The narrator knows more than the character
does, or more exactly, says more than the any of the characters know.

2. Internal Focalization

In this type, the narrator says only what a given character knows. It is also called “vision with” focalization.
There are further three types of internal focalization:

 Fixed, restricted to one character; it is used to show experiences of a certain character.

This is the type where narrator says less than the character knows. It is also known as “Vision from without”
focalization.

The Chart
First column. Readers can see thoughts of the homodiegetic narrator.

Second column. A heterodiegetic narrator has no access to characters thoughts.

Third column. A heterodiegetic narrator has access to thoughts of one character

Fourth column. A heterodiegetic narrator has access to thoughts of both characters.