relation of complicity between colonization and English literature

1. BEGINNING POSTCOLONIALISM
BY John McLeod
Presented by Zartab

2. Re-reading and re-writing English
literature
Introduction
Meenakshi Mukherjee has defended
Postcolonialism as an emancipatory concept on the grounds
that :
• It makes us interrogate many aspects of study of
literature that we were made to take for granted ,
• To re-interpret some of the old canonical texts from
Europe from the perspective of our specific historical
and geographical location .

3. The re-interpretation of ‘classic’ English
literature literary works has become an
important area of Postcolonialism.
Re-reading of literary ‘classics’ in the light of
postcolonial scholarship and experience , end
re-writing of received literary texts by
postcolonial writers are important areas of
Postcolonialism.

4. Colonialism and the teaching of
English literature
Postcolonialism deals with the complicity between English
literature and colonialism.
Mukherjee’s phrase ‘old canonical texts ‘refers to the ‘canon’ of
English literature: the writers and their work which are believed to
be of particular , rare value for reasons of aesthetic beauty and
moral sense.
The teaching of English literature in the colonies must be
understood as part of many ways in which western colonial
powers such as Britain asserted their cultural and moral
superiority while at the same time devaluing indigenous cultural
products .

5. Education as ideological apparatus
Education as ideological apparatus of the
state:
• by which certain values are asserted as
the best or more true.
• by means of which act of colonization
gained its legitimacy.
• By means of which colonial power
maintained its control and supremacy.

6. Education as ideological apparatus
• Macaulay's 1835Minute on Indian
Education
• Complicity between colonial act and
western education
• Assertion of an orientalist hierarchy
• Colonization of minds

7. Same is the argument of Gauri
Viswanathan’s book “Masks of conquest:
Literary Study and British Rule in India”.
Viswanathan’s study concerns the
emergence of English literature as a subject
in educational establishment in Indian
during the early 19th century specifically to
serve colonial interests.

8. It is through education that an English speaking
workforce was built to carry out the work of the
colonial authorities.
Teaching of English literature as indirect teaching of
Christian morality.
Presentation of Christianity as the source of moral
values for correct behavior and action and a
convenient replacement for indigenous religious
instructions.
Moral behavior and English behavior were
synonymous .

9. It is postcolonial study that reveal the complicit relation between
colonization and teaching of English literature.
Like Viswanathan reveals that the teaching of English literature in
the colonies was complicit with the act of colonization as it too
worked for the maintenance of colonial power.
When it comes to postcolonial study , for many in countries with a
history of colonization ,English literary texts have become
considered not as timeless works of art remote from history but as
complicit in the colonizing enterprise itself.

10. When Meenakshi Mukherjee argues that
Postcolonialism ‘makes us interrogate many
aspects of the study of literature that we were
made to take for granted’
• question the value of specific literary texts
• question the hidden doings of literary texts.
Postcolonial interpretation of literary
texts(Tempest)

11. Colonial contexts
How literary ‘classics’ have been re-read.
Reading literary texts in relation to their historical ,
social ,and cultural contexts rather than timeless
expressions of universally acknowledged moral values.
‘Context’ refers to something more dynamic and less
unified than ‘historical background’; it is used to
suggest many dominant issues ,debates and
knowledge in circulation at the time a text was
written , the various and competing ways in which
people conceived of their reality in the past.

12. Colonial contexts
Reading a text in relation to its contexts involves doing two things
simultaneously :
• First identifying how such contexts are made present or absent in a text
• Second ,exploring how the text itself may intervene in the debates of its
day support or resist dominant views of the world.
To read a text in its historical social and cultural contexts is to attend the ways it
dynamically deals with the issues it raises.
Reading an established ‘classic’ of literature written at the time of colonialism
often involves exploring its relationship with many of the issues and
assumptions that were fundamental to colonial discourses.

13. Reading literature ‘contrapuntally’
Contrapuntal analysis
developed by
Edward Said , used in interpreting colonial texts
, considering the perspective of both the
colonizer and the colonized.
Contrapuntal reading takes in both accounts of
an issue; it addresses both the perspective of
imperialism and the resistance to it.

14. Re-reading of “Mansfield Park”
Said explores the relation between Austen’s Mansfield Park and Britain colonization
of the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Said argues Antiguan material in the novel is not the marginal but central
Connection between the locations of Mansfield Park and Antiguan are vital as
comfortable middle class life style of Mansfield Park directly depends on the material
wealth gained from Antigua.
Sir Thomas’s bossy behavior and ability to set his house in order is reflexive of his role
as a colonial landlord.
Sir Thomas’s movement between England and Antigua safeguard his economic
health.
Issue of slavery

15. Consequences of re-reading
Mansfield Park
Remind us that how literary texts emerge from and have complex
engagement with the historical , social , and political conditions of
their time ,among which colonialism is fundamental in 19th
century .
This approach encourages contrapuntal readings of literary texts
,one which simultaneously aware of both the metropolitan history
that is narrated and of those other histories against which the
dominant discourse acts.
The third point concerns literary value . The brilliance of Austen’s
work depends upon the complex and subtle ways she configures
the relations between Mansfield Park and Antigua.

16. References
McLeod, J. (2016). Beginning postcolonialism. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Viswanathan, G. (2015). Masks of conquest: Literary study and
British rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press.

17. Thank you!