The Construction of the ‘Western Other’ in Hong Kong Post-colonial Cinema Hong Kong has always remained a very unique city, one which is said to have ‘a Western past, an Eastern future’. Since its colonisation by the British in the 1860s, it has maintained to a very large extent its Chinese identity and its connection to its Motherland, while at the same time, has frequent contact with the Western world, politically, economically, and culturally. Hong Kong’s unique position has made the city
When European colonial authors introduced us to the native, they created the native; the native character became more real to European readers than the actual inhabitants of the new world. The natives' overwhelming otherness eclipsed any individuality that might have been found among them. The native was childish, incapable of reason, and savagely unchristian, or as Lord Cromer described him, a being which "generally acts, speaks and thinks in a manner that is exactly opposite to the European" (qtd
Cry , the Beloved Country: Post-Colonial Literary Theory Bibliography w/4 sources Cry , the Beloved Country by Alan Paton is a perfect example of post-colonial literature. South Africa is a colonized country, which is, in many ways, still living under oppression. Though no longer living under apartheid, the indigenous Africans are treated as a minority, as they were when Paton wrote the book. This novel provides the political view of the author in both subtle and evident ways. Looking at
Post Colonial Interpretations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest “…do we really expect, amidst this ruin and undoing of our life, that any is yet left a free and uncorrupted judge of great things and things which reads to eternity; and that we are not downright bribed by our desire to better ourselves?” – Longinus Since the seventeenth century many interpretations and criticisms of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest have been recorded. Yet, since the play is widely symbolical and allegorical Shakespeare’s
The Meaning of Heart of Darkness in the Post-Colonial Climate Since its publication in 1899, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has rarely been disputed on the basis of its literary merits; in fact, it was long seen as one of the great novels of the burgeoning modern era, a sort of bridge between the values and storytelling styles of the waning Victorian period and those of the modern era (Gatten), and regarded a high-ranking space amidst the great literature of the century, if not the millennia
Post-Colonial Theory and Heart of Darkness "Heart of Darkness" begins and ends in London; on the Nellie on the Thames. The most part, however, takes place in the Congo (now known as the Republic of the Congo). The Kongo, as it was originally known, was inhabited first by pygmy tribes and migratory 'Bantus' and was 'discovered' by the Portuguese in the 14th Century. The Portuguese brought with them Catholocism; European missionaries. The Congo was ruled by King Alfonso I from 1506 - 1540 and Shamba
A Post-colonial Study of Heart of Darkness In this paper, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness will be examined by using a recent movement, Post-colonial Study that mainly focuses on the relationship between the Self and the Other, always intertwined together in considering one’ identity. The Other is commonly identified with the margin, which has been oppressed or ignored by Eurocentric, male-dominated history. Conrad is also conscious of the Other's interrelated status with the Self, but
History, Language and Post-colonial Issues in Brian Friel’s Translations Owen: Back to first principles. What are we trying to do? Yolland: Good question. Owen: We are trying to denominate and at the same time describe . . . ” Dun na nGall or Donegal? Muineachain or Monaghan? Same place, same difference? As Owen says about his own name: “Owen - Roland - what the hell. It’s only a name.” ( Translations ) For the student of post-colonial literature, what transpires in Friel’s play as the British
Post-Colonial Themes in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon It is interesting to note that, although in the context of this MA course we are studying Malouf's novel in terms of a post-colonial response, the author himself has expressed the opinion that it is not, strictly speaking, a post-colonial text. Most would agree with Malouf in that it is certainly not an example of resistance or response from a member of a colonised community in the same vein as, for example, Chinua Achebe or some Native
A post-colonial canonical and cultural revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes narratives Redefining the British literary canon as imperial construct and influence 'A canon,' Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffiin argue, 'is not a body of texts per se, but rather a set of reading practices....' (189). They define 'reading practices' as 'the enactment of innumerable individual and community assumptions, for example about genre, about literature, and even about writing....' (189). The purpose of the following
Language Follows Evolution of Jackson and Trewe Relationship Paralleling the Colonization to Post-Colonial Movement in Pantomime The play opens on the edge of a cliff; anything can happen. Derek Walcott, a playwright from the Caribbean, lives his own life on the edge of a cliff. Walcott’s family placed strong emphasis on education and ancestry. His inherent duality, European and African, mirrors that of post-colonialism (Gilbert 131). It is this duality that Walcott tries to reconcile in his work
that focused on the Congo. In the article, "Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse," Helen Tiffin raises a number of issues in regards to the hybridization of the colonized and how European universals invariably clash with that of the native. From the very beginning of the article, Tiffin notes that there is a "call to arms" (so to speak) that encompasses the "demand for an entirely new or wholly recovered 'reality,' free from all colonial taint" (95). This hope is idealistic, especially
and memorable. Does home necessarily have to represent a place? Rather, can it encompass a multitude of feelings and objects that represent comfort and ease? The post-colonial novel often strives to strike a balance, whether it be uneven, between what is considered foreign and exotic and that which is homely and familiar. Post-colonial literature frequently is representative of the interplay between characters' experiences in an exotic environment versus those at home. With this interplay between
Interplay Between Dickens's Great Expectations and Carey’s Jack Maggs Carey’s Jack Maggs is an example of the post-colonial concept of ‘writing back’. That is, the novel although written over a century apart from Dicken’s Great Expectations, is in fact indirectly interacting with this original text. The principal protagonist of Carey’s novel the eponymous Jack Maggs is undoubtedly indebted to the original Magwitch of the Dicken’s novel. Although Carey does not call Maggs, Magwitch, the shared
Sargasso Sea , the colonial ‘other’ character from a canonised Victorian novel becomes the principal figure in a modern 'decolonising' text, and the peripheral reaches of empire become of central importance. In Jack Maggs, Australian novelist Peter Carey reconfigures the plot of Dickens’s classic Great Expectations so that it is the maginalised, (colonial) convict figure who now becomes the narrative focus. By filtering the experiences of the exiled convict through a post-colonial lens, Carey creates
Turnbull's he Lonely African This course on colonial and post-colonial literature satisfies my cravings for thought and literature that falls outside of the mainstream of the Eurocentric view of things. Achebe, Walcott, Arundhati, and Kincaid etc. the so-called marginalized- third-world writers provide another perspective, another glimpse of reality as they see and experience it. Hopefully this journal will juxtapose colonial and post-colonial perspectives. I'm also interested in the struggle
Post-Colonial and Post-Modernist View of Walcott's Collected Poems and Roy's The God of Small Things "Language was not so much a distinguishing sign of a soul or spirituality, which animals do not possess, as a social practice which enhanced survival of the species"-Nietzche. Nietzche reminded twentieth century intellectuals of the decisive role of language in the construction of human experience of 'reality'. With his 'perspectivism' and relativism, truth, whether artistic or scientific was
Post colonial’ as we define it does not mean ‘post-independence’, or ‘after colonialism’, for this would be falsely ascribe an end to the colonial process. Post-colonialism, rather, begins from the very first moment of colonial contact. It is the discourse of oppositinality which colonialism brings into being” (pL.117) The term post colonial is resonant with all the doubts and complexities of the various cultural experiences it involves. It also addresses all aspects of the colonial process from
Pakistan Pakistan is a post-colonial nation-state. Since 1947 this large Muslim nation has not been able to introduce a liberal democratic model of civic education in its schools that could have promoted democratic values, tolerance, gender equality and civic participation skills. Several factors are responsible for impeding the progress in civic education: a garrison culture, the Cold War exigencies, religious extremism, and feudalism. Introduction Like most post-colonial nation-states Pakistan
developments in the humanities, usually grouped under the common label of "post-structuralist theory," have contributed to making us sensitive to the politics of culture, in general, and of literature, in particular. Much thought has been given in the last few decades to how the literary canon emerges and holds its ground, and to the relations between canonical and non-canonical, between the centre and the margins. Post-colonial theorist Edward Said reminds us that "[t]he power to narrate, or to block