Post-colonial literature and western superiority
imitation of ‘ a bogus history ’ 6 of western literature that hinders ‘ the fullest use of mind ’ – creatives like Krishna are trapped within the confines of western convention.
The novels already mentioned vividly depict the ways in which inhabiting a middle-class identity in colonial India also means an adoption of a dual Indian- British identity that isolates a ‘middle - caste’ person like Ammu from finding love with a lower- caste ‘untouchable’ like Velutha, but that also affirms Chacko’s affections for Margaret as ridiculous, as the divide between the Indian and British middle classes is still vast. In comparison, Jean Rhys’ 1966 ‘prequel’ to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Se a, analyses the dynamics between class, race, ethnicity, religion and gender in 1830-40s Jamaica that create a Creole ‘middle - caste’ whose isolating characteristics drive protagonist Antoinette Cosway to ‘madness’. Creole identity as depicted by Rhys is positioned within this ‘middle - caste’ idea for its resemblance to both an aristocracy – ‘ Creole Heiress ’ – and, like in The God of Small Things , to an untouchable class, dehumanized and called ‘ white cockroach. ’ As early as part one of the novel, the disgust felt towards Antoinette for her Creole identity is made clear. She is othered from the ‘ real white people ’ in Jamaica, instead belonging to the ‘ Old time white people ’ – ‘ nothing but white n***** now, and black n***** better than white n*****. ’ 7 Ethnically, Antoinette is white, but, like her mixed-race half- brother, she is labelled as ‘ half-caste ’ nevertheless, and this dual-heritage positions her in a void outside of the social order. The struggles of the dual-heritage, middle-caste protagonists of post-colonial literature are important, but also a uniquely privileged lens that speaks only for a minority of post-colonial experiences. The partly westernized lens through which the stories of colonized people is told can be harmful and reductive, as explored in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe . Much like Jean Rhys, Coetzee chooses to subvert the western literary canon in order to tell a post- colonial narrative, choosing Englishman Daniel Defoe’s 1719 adventure classic Robinson Crusoe , and focusing on the peripheral characters of ‘Crusoe’s wife’ Susan Barton and ‘the tongueless slave’ Friday. Barton does not share the same dual-heritage as aforementioned post-colonial protagonists, but she does resemble them in many of her traits, which allows her to serve as a nuanced critique of the middle- class post- colonial writer. Coetzee’s version of Daniel Defoe , to whom Barton writes, could be interpreted as representing the western perception of what is acceptable literature. Friday is an outsider to the western world in perhaps every conceivable way, yet as Barton travels through Britain alongside him, she becomes perceived as an outsider in much the same way, despite her English heritage. In this sense, Barton is given a mixed-racial identity: ‘ Twice have Friday and I been called gipsies … Am I become a gipsy unknown to myself? ’ In many ways Barton’s racial and class identity resembles Antoinette’s in ‘ Wide Sargasso Sea ’, being ethnically white but culturally ‘foreign’. As Antoinette Cosway has her name stolen and shifted into Bertha Mason to be acceptable to Rochester’s English sensibilities, Susan Barton becomes ‘ Mrs. Crusoe ’ to fit more neatly into Defoe’s westernized reshaping of her narrative. In her struggle to tell Friday’s story honestly, however, Barton finds herself inventing elements of him also.
6 Narayan 1945: 145 – ‘ Why do they make so much of the history of literature? They have to make a history of every damned thing on earth – as if literature could not survive without some fool compiling a bogus history. ’ 7 Rhys 1966: 10.
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