Note to Reader: The following will function as my own reaction to Postcolonial Theory as well as a couple of texts that I believe align with the concept. It will function as more of an op-ed kind of framework and may not particularly align with scholarly conventions for this particular piece. This is not to say that subsequent pieces will function the same, as there will be pieces that align, almost exclusively, with the scholarly conventions, but this piece is just my overall impressions of certain texts and concepts as they may—or may not, depending on one’s perspective—align with Postcolonial Theory. Any texts/scholarship mentioned in this piece will be referenced at the end.

Postcolonial Literature/Theory with a Side of Protest Novel

Christopher Thomas, Ph.D. student in English

Introduction

Both Postcolonial works of literature and the Protest Novel, occupy an interesting space in literary and cultural studies, broadly. Generally, the latter tends to be produced by African American writers, although other writers utilize the genre as well. Additionally, Postcolonial literature and theory occupies a significant amount of real estate in American scholarship and scholarship generally.

This piece examines and presents my own impressions of the two genres as I attempt to place two specific texts in these categories. This piece may contain scholarly elements, but it is intended to function more as an opinion-based writing. These were some ideas that came to mind and I chose to write about them. I do plan to take this up in a more scholarly way, but this was an attempt to get some of my thoughts in a digital space.

Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonial Theory is a practice that has existed in scholarship for several decades, and many scholars have already examined this particular theory in great detail. Interestingly, I would like to provide my own analysis of the concept and how it exists in a space with literature, more specifically, African American Literature. 

            Oxford Bibliographies defines Postcolonial Theory as “a body of thought primarily concerned with political, aesthetic, economic, historical, and social impact of European colonial rule around the world in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries” (Oxford Bibliographies). There is quite a bit to this definition, and it is worth unpacking it a bit. It is worth noting that postcolonial theory deals broadly with how European colonial rule has affected various cultures of individuals throughout the world. It is generally partnered up with colonialism as this is a driving principle for postcolonialism. These two concepts generally go hand-in-hand as one proceeds the other. Generally, most think of colonialism as the colonizing force overtaking those who they think must be transformed—or colonized. These are generally European forces who believe that a particular group of individuals needs to become more civilized and would benefit from their way of living and their cultures. This is not to suggest, however, that the cultural implications are the only elements that provide motivation for colonizing forces to take over a particular area. Often times it happens to be the resources that are present in a n area, or more simply, they want the land for their own people.

            Whatever the reason may be, postcolonial theory deals with all aspects of life: social, historical, aesthetic, political, etc. When focusing on the colonized individuals, it is important to remember that they have their own systems, but it is the colonizer who feels that those systems are inferior and wish to perpetuate their own systems and cultures and languages. To put this into context—opinions of these efforts aside—when thinking of the United States and its relationship with Iraq in 2001 and beyond. The US felt as if the Iraqis were uncultured and uncivilized and lacked true and effective leadership—not to mention that the allegations of weapons of mass destruction and their leader—so it was necessary for the US to step in and “fix” things. We ostensibly overthrew their government, established a new government mirroring our own democracy, and attempted to put the war-torn country back together in a manner that we thought was most effective. 

            This highlights how colonizing forces operate, in a sense. Irrespective of the intentions associated with these measures, this shows how one country comes in and overtakes a country they feel needs restructuring and imparts many of its own norms (culturally and otherwise) on the colonized. When comparing the 2001 Iraq to the 2020 Iraq—despite the obvious tensions that still exists—they are two different countries. This helps to illustrate how postcolonialism works, because the aftermath of the “transformation” is related to postcolonialism while the process to get to the transformation is related to colonialism, which shows why the two theories generally go hand in hand.

            I will admit, however, that the above example is probably one of the more contentious ones, due to all of the implications associated with it, but it merely serves as an example of how the concept works. A clearer example, which even aligns more closely with the definition offered by Oxford Bibliographies, is the transformation and development of the African American culture. 

            As most know, Africa became a hotspot for many European colonial forces, particularly due to the richness of the land and the resources that were found on the continent. At the time of During the eighteenth-century, European colonial forces began the process of taking over certain African territories and exporting Africans to other areas as a means of labor. In their eyes, Africans were uncivilized and mere savages and needed to be transformed. Enter the slave trade. Although this is a gross paraphrase, it is easy to see the trajectory of how the colonizing and postcolonial processes work in this regard.

            Once the Africans arrived in the southern portion of the US colonies—or what was left of them after a dangerous and disastrous trek to the US—we begin to see the colonizing process in full swing. The African slaves were forced to adopt things like the language, cultural norms, political structures, social behaviors and the like of the American way. As a result of adopting these “American” norms, the Africans began to see a deterioration of their own identities and a transformation into a more Americanized identity. No matter how hard anyone tried, it became more and more difficult to preserve the historical identities of the Africans who had been shipped to the US. This is a clearer picture of how colonizing leads to the postcolonial process. The latter demonstrates the aftermath when a particular group of individuals have been transformed and absorbed by another culture. 

            Interestingly, even though this transformation did take place with the African people, the US refused to recognize Africans as people. Since they were forced to manual labor, these people were no more than property in the eyes of the Americans who “owned” them. This, although many scholars would most likely disagree, would complicate the notion of postcolonial theory, because it does not directly deal with issues of identity in terms of property versus personhood within these particular confines. Irrespective of the determination of Americans to confine Africans in this space of property, the postcolonial theory concept still applies in these circumstances.

            As time progressed, Africans were forced to adopt a more Americanized identity. One of the first pieces of this identity they had to master was the language. English function as a device that separated the Africans from the Americans and was a system that must be conquered in order to survive. This was particularly interesting, because Africans had to figure out and understand the meaning of these words and be able to communicate those words and meanings to the rest of their culture so that everyone knew what certain things meant when they heard them. Eventually we would see a transformation to most of the Africans beginning to speak a “broken” English and their own languages beginning to fade away. This gives way to a partial transformation into a more Americanized identity. 

            Interestingly, the fear of the Americans was that once the Africans became pore keen to the ways of the culture—namely, literacy practices—it would cause them to begin to understand their power and internalize what the white culture was doing to them. Americans made a valiant effort to prevent the Africans from becoming educated, because education equaled liberation, and that meant more and more Africans would be armed with the knowledge to overthrow the entire system of slavery. Even though these efforts were made, there were still a vast many African slaves that became more literate and then began to understand the system in which they were trapped and began to attempt to educate their own, so that everyone could partake in this idea of “liberation” even though they were still ostensibly confined to the system of slavery. 

            Although this is overly simplified, it helps to demonstrate how postcolonial theory functions. It serves as a means to examine the aftermath of a civilization that has been conquered by a European colonial force. One important thing to point out, however, is that this process—colonization and postcolonization—was not confined to just African cultures. This took place in a wide array of cultures and some of which we may never know, because they have been absorbed into European cultures and norms, but they do exist. Perhaps this would be a great project to consider: the cultures that were exposed to European colonialism and what they look like now. There are a vast number of these cultures on the books, but it would be interesting to see how many were directly affected by European powers.

The Postcolonial Texts

Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, a vast array of texts came out on the scene that highlighted notions of postcolonialism. These texts took on many different identities, but the main premise was to demonstrate how certain cultures were affected by European influence and had ostensibly lost their original identities and grappled with the new European identities that were being forced on their cultures. These texts were pivotal at the time of their publication, because they highlighted certain cultures many did not know existed or had limited knowledge of their original identities and how those identities faded away.

            Since my focus is more on the African American side of things, I am going to attempt to keep the texts I reference in that particular space. There is a layer of complexity to African American postcolonial texts that help to highlight the concept more prominently, which provides an excellent area of focus.

            Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig (1859), seems like a great place to start. Although this novel fits more squarely in the confines of a slave narrative, it does pay some homage to postcolonial theories. The novel deals, almost exclusively, with the autobiography of Wilson. It serves an interesting purpose, because it captures the domestic slave space of female slaves. It allowed for readers to see what happened inside the home of slave owners and the relationship between the slave and slave mistress. 

            This text did so many great things. Not only did it provide a framework for the domestic space, but it also showed readers ways in which female slaves fought for agency in the spaces of their slave mistresses. In addition, this text paid homage to feminism at large because the male voice was ostensibly silenced in the majority of the text. Mr. Bellmont, who was the owner of a small farmland, was more submissive to Mrs. Bellmont, who functioned as a secondary driving force of the text. It is clear after readers examined the interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Bellmont, that the former was going to control the domestic space and the outer space in certain senses. 

            As readers progressed through the text, it was clear that female voices would dominate the discourse. This is not to suggest that there were not males present in the text. The Bellmonts had a son in addition to the senior Bellmont, but even his voice was silenced in a way, because he stayed away from the home quite often until he came back after taking sick. Jack Bellmont, the son of the Bellmont, functioned as a protecting force for “Nig,” the character who would function as Wilson throughout. He ensured she had adequate living space and also attempted to protect her from the many whippings Mrs. Bellmont imparted on her. Both he and Mr. Bellmont would often challenge the slave mistress and very seldom would she concede control. There was one particular instance when Mrs. Bellmont refused to allow Nig to eat at the table with the family, but because of the strong protest between Mr. Bellmont and Jack Bellmont, she was then permitted, much to the dismay of Mrs. Bellmont. Consequently, Nig would pay for this “betrayal” much later.

            Throughout the novel, there was a power struggle between Mrs. Bellmont and Nig. The former was threatened by her beauty and di everything she could to attempt to make her less attractive. While readers do not clearly get a small glimpse of the postcolonial elements of the text until closer to the end, it is clear that there was a solid colonizing force and a force the colonizer felt needed to be colonized or made more civil. Nig was the savage and Mrs. belllmont functioned as the colonizing force who attempted to make Nig more civilized. She often permitted Nig to go to church services with Jane, who functioned as a housekeeper of sorts almost. She helped the inquisitive Nig understand religion and her place in this system. After a while, however, Mrs. Bellmont attempted to put an end to this, because Nig was becoming more informed and that did not help Mrs. Bellmont maintain the control over her. 

            While some scholars many argue—and I am inclined to agree to an extent—that Our Nig may not be the strongest representation of a Postcolonial text, it does pay homage to this concept as well as the struggle that often ensued between the colonizing force and the colonized. Nig fought Mrs. Bellmont throughout the entirety of the text and refused to acquiesce and give up her agency, which fueled the fire between Mrs. Bellmont and Nig, because she was not a submissive slave the way that Mrs. Bellmont wanted her to be. Additionally, Mrs. Bellmont was highly threatened by Nig because of this and her way to “control” the other members of the household, so much so that they all came to Nig’s rescue whenever Mrs. Bellmont went after her with the whip, which would infuriate Mrs. Bellmont even more. Interestingly, these types of power struggles were quite common, which demonstrates that the head of the household and/or the slave mistress were not always the ones in control and this novel was definitely indicative of that fact.

            Towards the end of the novel, Nig transforms in a sense with the new knowledge that has overtaken her throughout her journey. She has a clearer concept of her place in society and has used her knowledge of religion to help her understand her place in society. It is almost as if she begins to take on a new identity towards the end of the text, and she ends up with power and Mrs. Bellmont, who essentially loses everything becomes the more submissive one. In effect, the colonizing force ends up acquiescing to the individual who she attempted to colonize.

Richard Wright’s Native Son: Exclusively Protest or Postcolonial too?

The protest novel was a popular African American literary genre that entered the scene in the early twentieth century. Although this genre does not specifically belong to the African American literary tradition, it has been used quite extensively to highlight various political, social, and economic issues plaguing the African American society. The Britannica defines the protest (or social) novel as “a work of fiction, in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of the novel” (Britannica). This is an apt definition and demonstrates what the novel attempted to accomplish. 

            One of the most prominent protest novels, Richard Wright’s Native Son, seeks to demonstrate the efficacy of the protest novel. It focuses primarily on issues of race and the power structure differences between the African American race and the white race. Bigger, the central character in the text, functions as an individual who seems to be trapped in the middle of this structure. He realizes throughout the text how he would always be trapped in a structure where the white race would serve as the dominant structure and the black race would be subservient to the white race. Interestingly, however, he complicates this notion with the act of murder he committ4ed. Even though it was completely accidental, it served as a powerful message to members of the white race inside of the text. It demonstrated that although they had low expectations of black individuals, they were more smart, skilled, and educated than they were given credit for, and Bigger functioned as the prime example of this. His act of murder, while accidental, still had sophistication to it. Even his attorney and all other members of the society had to recognize this. 

            While there is much more to the text and I do not wish to minimize this, but I would also like to pose a question as to whether or not this text contains postcolonial or colonial attributes/elements. Purdue Owl provides a solid definition/explanation for what Postcolonial literature intends to do and how it should be treated. They argue, “postcolonial critics are concerned with the literature produced by colonial powers and works produced by those who were/are colonized. Postcolonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony” (Purdue Owl). This definition is needed to determine whether Richard Wright’s novel could potentially operate in this space. 

            One could make a solid case that Native Son does align with some of these attributes. In this text, Bigger is confined in a power struggle between both he and the white race. He feels trapped in this structure throughout the entirety of the text and almost feels as if he has to do things to break out of this structure. One of the ways he accomplishes this is through the murder of Mary Dalton, the rich white daughter of Mr. Dalton. This particular act was accidental, and unplanned, but it still functions as a mechanism that helped Bigger break the system of oppression. It demonstrated that black people were much more advanced and educated than what they were given credit for by white people. 

            Interestingly, Bigger realizes and internalizes this power structure throughout the course of the novel, and one could argue that this was a strong factor that took the murderous act to the extreme. He seems to admire the work, because in his mind no white person would believe that a black man did what he did to Mary Dalton. After he fled the scene and read about the incident in the paper, and watched as others read it, he comments on how he wanted to shout at that very moment that he did it. He figured no one would believe a black man had the mental capacity to pull of something so sophisticated. This was, in part, why it was so easy to blame the events that took place on Jan, because he was white, and a member of the communist party and they were smack dab in the middle of the “Red Scare” at the time.

            Readers can observe more evidence of this power structure when Bigger and his friends were “playing white,” where they imagined they were pilots and other high-ranking positions, because they knew that those positions were ones that were outside of black reach, especially in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. When juxtaposing 1930 and 2000 even, one can see there was a significant difference in terms of what African Americans had access to and what they did not. This is not to suggest that it was perfect and that there are no disparities in the twenty-first century, because the average person could write a book on the subject. This was just to show that black men and women had more access to higher-ranking jobs in the latter versus the former. 

            When it comes to issues of economics, as mentioned in the postcolonial theory definition, readers are clearly able to view the disparities that existed between whites and blacks during this particular time period. Mr. Dalton, for example, owned almost all of the black apartment housing, which captured a significant portion of the economic disadvantage that existed in the text. It wasn’t until Bigger’s inquisition and the interrogation brought on by his attorney Max, that Mr. Dalton began to see—albeit internally and for the first time—that he, in fact, perpetuated the system of economic disparity as well as racial isolation in Chicago. He was lining his pockets with African American dollars, while they were forced to live in deplorable conditions. 

            I do not intend to argue that there are strong connections between Wright’s novel and postcolonial literature, but I do believe there is a case to be made that there were elements present in the text. It is clearly a better example of a protest novel, but it also highlights the major components of postcolonial literature and, as I mentioned, a clear case could be made that it is quite friendly with postcolonial literature and there is no mistake that Wright would been more than familiar with the genre of literature at that time that he published his text (along with many others. 

            One of the key attributes of postcolonial literature, that one could argue is present in the text, is the notion of rewriting history. It is clear that both Jan and Mary Dalton intend to paint a rose-colored image of how the relationship is between whites and blacks. Now, I will concede and say that while this may be something that the two of them are doing with their over idealized images of the relationship between the two colors, I do not believe that they were consciously doing it. It is clear that the two of them, because of their respective statuses were a tad naïve when it came to how black men and women lived, they still made it seem like things were much better for African Americans than they were at the time. I believe they had a responsibility to know these things and should have known. Even though Mr. Dalton was responsible, in large part, for a substantial amount of the black suppression, it is clear that he had at least a partial idea of the disadvantage’s blacks experienced in South Chicago. It almost seemed as if Jan and Mary Dalton attempted to rewrite, or at best alter the narrative for how blacks actually lived.

\           Valorization of cultural identity is another key characteristic of postcolonial literature. This attribute may be more challenging to make a case for with respect to Wright’s text. Most of the black individuals in the text did not display an overwhelming sense of pride with respect to their cultural identity. In fact, it seemed as if most black men and women seemed to despise their African American identities, because it was almost as if they felt that their identities were the reason why they were in the situation they were in. And they were correct. Wright did a solid job of displaying authenticity when it came to the black culture, but the characters did not overly value this identity.

Conclusion

Postcolonial literature/theory has always fascinated me in a way that no other genre of literature or theory has yet. It is always interesting to see how certain cultures have transformed after their experiences with European colonial powers. Additionally, as these cultures are traced through history, we can see how bits and pieces of their original identities become lost or blurred in a sense, as is the case for most Africans dominated by European powers. The perplexing part to this—among many others—is that the newly developed cultures tend to not notice these transformations, because it has already occurred at the point at which this becomes a reality.

            The language changes, the cultural identity changes, religious traditions change, and often times the oral traditions that were once quite prominent in the culture begin to disappear and we lose those key narratives that form the backbone of the culture. In some cases, however, those identities are preserved in writing, such as slave narratives, folklore and the like. When written documents exist, it gives the newer generations an opportunity to experience some of the things that their ancestors experienced—albeit in a written format. This is the main way that these cultural identities are preserved, and other members of the culture are able to unearth those identities

            Wright’s piece did a solid job of capturing the language aspect of things in his text. Readers were able to place themselves in the moment as they read through the dialogue as well as the vivid descriptions of the events that took place. It is clear that he had a strong sense of the history that took place during the 1930s and 40s.

            It would be interesting to examine how many protest novels have postcolonial roots. In addition to this, it would also be interesting to see how many other African American authors who wrote protest novels had any command of the characteristics of postcolonial literature/theory 

and how the two items functioned. The short answer to this: most African American writers who produced texts between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries—and beyond ostensibly—had a clear sense of both postcolonial literature and theory. I believe that is why in some of their texts produced during these periods, there were elements of the school of thought present. \\m

References

Wilson, Harriet. Our Nig. Penguin Publishing, 1859. Print.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. Harper and Brothers Publication, 1940. Print.