1. POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE, BIS 3083
Postcolonial Culture:
HYBRIDITY
LECTURER:
DR. LAJIMAN JANOORY
Prepared by:
WAN NURFATIN SYARMEMY BT W.M. AZMUDDIN
(D20091034408)
ANIS ZULAIKHA BT BASRAH (D20091034413)
SHIKNESVARY A/P KARUPPAIAH (D20091034433)

2. Hybridity
• Creation of transcultural forms within the
contact zone produced by colonization.
• Hybridisation takes place in many form :
cultural, political & linguistic (Pidgin & Creole)
• Hybridity :
 bringing together two cultures
 offering the possibility of a third way/
“Third Space”

3. • Third Space of Enunciation by Homi Bhabha is a
theory of identity or community realized through
language or enunciation.
• It explains about uniqueness of identity as a hybrid.
• Concept of Third Space Theory can be found in :
Music : (“Shang Shang Typhoon (a music group)
mixes Western rock, jazz and reggae with
Japanese enka ballads, folk, Okinawan melodies,
Bollywood films :
Novels : The Satanic Verses

4. Salman Rushdie
• Indo – Englishman novelist & essayist
• Likes to combine magical realism, historical,
satire, post colonialism & concerned with
connections, disruptions, migrations
between
East and West.
• His writing reflects on national identity.

5. • Argues that hybrid writing is necessary
– „English is no longer an English
language‟
• Represented in many ways such as the
use of South Asian words & location

7. The Satanic Verses
• Rushdie‟s fourth & controversial novel.
• Hybridity is centered through the
protagonist characters who fall out of a plane
an land on a beach on the south coast of
England.
• Their dramatic arrival symbolizes recent
post colonial invasions of England and
Englishness as a unitary identity.

8. • it explores effects of people being
produced by more than 1 culture
• i.e people as the products of
globalization, an ever integrating world
system of politics, economics, culture &
identity.

9. • texts are rich with
ambivalences, contradictions, bizarre
juxtapositions of modern life (
reference to western TV images &
Indian literature)
• Explores the different consequences of
the hybridising process of
contemporary society.

10. Into The Satanic Verses
• Pagan verses which were temporarily included in
the Qu‟ran by Prophet Muhammad.
• 2 protagonist Indian Muslim characters : Gibreel
Farishta & Saladin Chamcha.
• The characters transformed into Archangel
Gibreel & Devil
• Farishta – real „authentic‟ Indian
• Chamcha – celebrating hybridity, a real brown –
Englishman.

12. • The novel suggests that neither alone are
‘true’, that both are equally real and equally
fabrications.
If The Satanic Verses is anything, it is the
migrants’ view on the world. It is written from
the very experience of uprooting, disjuncture
and metamorphosis..that is the migrant
condition and from which I believe can be
derived a metaphor for all humanity. (Rushdie,
quoted in Bhabha, 1990:16)

14. THE HYBRID GEOGRAPHY
IN SATANIC VERSES

15. 1. The locations which are in
England and South Asia
Stresses the similarities between these
distant places rather than the coherence and
unity of bounded space.

16. 2. The mentioned cultures in the
novel
 British history; the Norman conquest & the contemporary
characteristics of British culture
 The Indian history , mythology and movie stars
- Creating a sense of hybridity for the reader: sometime you
become part of the community , sometimes you know you’ve been left
out – like the migrant both with and without.

17. the Norman conquest
Indian history & mythology

18. 3. The languages used
 Included Indian words, terms and names from Qur'an
- The names of the characters which bring meanings in Arabic but
simply appear as exotic signifiers to a reader who does not know the
language
Examples : “ JAHILIA “
“ CHAMCHA “
- A deeper sense of belonging is established
- A sense of otherness, exclusion and difference evoked

19. 4. A geography for the
readership of Rushdie’s work.
 Different readers achieve different interpretations and readings of the
text depending on their cultural backgrounds.
 Each reader being included in some references and excluded from the
meanings of others.

20. 5. The non-linear narrative which
moves forwards and backwards
through hundreds of years
The mentioned period when Quran
was dictated to Mohamed is mixed in
with the contemporary events
- Refusing to accept the secular
progressiveness of history

21.  The combination of myth and reality between the
characters
- The existence of two main characters in which they have
metamorphosed into chimerical beasts and wander around London with
the people responding to them.

22. The Migrant Experience in the Satanic Verses
 The transformation of the character , Saladin Chamcha
- have sprung horns, awful and sulphurous bad-breath, powerful and incredibly
hairy legs, feet replaced by hooves
 The meeting with the similarly magical beings in an institution
-A man-tiger or manticore ; head of a ferocious tiger with three rows of teeth, The
Moaner Lisa, a woman who mostly water-buffalo, businessman from Nigeria with
grown sturdy tails and a group of holidaymakers from Senegal turned into slippery
snakes.
 The emerged question on who is to be blamed upon the mutation
that occurred
-“ Who can be blamed ....”
- “ They describe us ...”
- “That’s all. They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures
they construct..”

24. POSTCOLONIAL MUSICIANS
(world music)
Why
MUSIC?
Quick to respond to cultural
meetings – unlike literature
Represents the
DIASPORAIC
Performed by all sorts of
people across the world
Expression of
the voice of the
marginalised

25. HYBRID MUSIC – Raï ( )
Raï = opinion (Arabic) Emerged in Algeria
> to express opinion and dissent
> begun in early 20th century as a political
form of expression
North African + European musical traditions = raï
sung in local dialect of eclectic rhythms, merging
Arabic, African, flamenco, disco, hip hop and
reggae
Early 20th century: shikh (men) and shikha (women)
> Later: cheb or chebba
> For French-Algerians in France, the lyrics is on the
problems and difficulties of being an immigrant

27. Rock
- African slaves +
European-
American
MUSIC represents DIASPORAIC
and MIGRANT COMMUNITIES
E
X
A
M
P
L
E
S
Bangra
- Punjabi
traditional
wedding musical
traditions 
electronic techno
beats
Contemporary
global lounge
- French
musician, Claude
Challe’s Buddha
Bar collections

29. AMBIVALENCE ABOUT THE NATURE OF
HYBRIDITY
Sembène Ousmane
- Senegalese author
- Xala - a book which later directed as
film
- published in 1974
- examines the postcolonial
condition of his country in the
figure of one man, El Hadji
Abdou Kader Beye

30. XALA – a summary
It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from
France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we
soon become aware that only the faces have changed.
White money still controls the government. One
official, Aboucader Beye, known by the title "El Hadji,"
takes advantage of some of that money to marry his
third wife, to the sorrow and chagrin of his first two
wives and the resentment of his nationalist daughter.
But he discovers on his wedding night that he has been
struck with a "xala," a curse of impotence El Hadji goes
to comic lengths to find the cause and remove the
xala, resulting in a scathing satirical ending
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073915/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

31. The remainder of the story
charts his attempts to
reclaim his manhood with
trips to local healers and
marabout
*marabout - Muslim dervish, esp. in N Africa, often credited
with supernatural powers. (thefreedictionary.com)

32. HYBRIDITY in XALA
El Hadji’s attempts to be successful in both in his ‘westernised’
life and as a Muslim man
-Businessman
-Wears European-
style suit
- Speaks French
- Drinks mineral
water
-A polygamous
Muslim
-Status measured
in ability to
support multiple
wives