deconstruction of the colonial myth
TRANSCRIPT
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Chapter
4
DECONSTRUCrrlON
OF THE COLONIAL MYTH
While writing nd eLiucnrit~g
herse&
Ndim iordinrrr
experienced
a
radrcai
psychologcal
r pture which she
c lfs
secundbirth
h discovered th 'great
h i h frican
lie
Gordimer was most
concerned in
analyzing t h e
European experience in relation
to
the
African
cultural
context She has given explicit answers to h e r ow
position
as a writer
in the post-colonial
period, in
her
essay Essen t i a l gesture^.'^ In h e r own words
I t . . .
the peculiar relation of the writer
in
South Africa, as
interpreter, both
to South Africa
and
to
the world,
of a
soc i e ty
in struggle, makes
the
narrow
corridor
[and]
. . can lead
you one
in which
doors fly
open on the
tremendous
happenings
experienced
by
blacksts
2 7 2 ) .
Here
she has defined t h e
responsibility
of a
w r i t r in a
political context , and
has
reconciled t h e same with the
greater commitment within the artist towards art.
The
medium of
words
can be more
than a
self-regulatory
a c t
(Hvth. Literature and the
Lxkzan
World, 62 as Soyinka
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as ser t s
and
can be an
integral
part of the culture of
struggling
nation. Nowhere can
we trace
the depth
and
conviction
o
Gordimer s
abiding
concern more
than
in
her
fiction especially in her
short fiction.
In
the
freedom of creativity
Gordimer
explores deeper and
deeper
n t o the minds and behavioral reasons
of her
society.
And
she brings in her
language to
bear upon
itself the experience of a different
kind. Gordimer s
position
in
t h e
post-colonial context, can
be
interpreted
as
her attempt
at
studying the colonizer/colonized
dichotomy. s a
person
marginal subject witnessing
the
political
and social revolution
in
South Africa,
Gordimer
had
the
distinct
advantage
of
entering t h
colonial
edifice
of
lies
and deconstructing
it
from
the
i n s i d e . Born
as
privileged
person in
the
white section
of
the
society Gordimer seems
to
have understood
the
Black other* in their cause of human liberalism
and
simple social just ice . Even in the wake of t h e Black
consciousness
movement when she w s rather displaced
from
t h e main stream of political activity, Gordimer had
worked
from
the outs ide as a major force
in illuminating
t h e
social
reality as
opposed to t h e
white
man s version
of
truth. This
post-colonial
feature is present
throughout Gordimer s works.
D. E.
S
Maxwell had contained t h e post-colonial
literature
within two
major
categories, whereby w r i t r
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brings his
language
to a fresh environment that had to be
incorporated into h i s style, or when a writer uses the
idiom of
an alien
language
to
bear
the
burden
of
h i s
ow
cultural and social
experience(Commonwea1th
l i t e r a m ,
8 2 - 9 .
In a
broad
sense
of the
term,
post-colonialism is
a
Rind
of
reaction to
'colonialism.'
Colonialism though
trans-historical and unspecified, is an enormously
problematic
category: it is,
according
to Stephen Slemon,
used
in
relation
to
very
different
kinds
of
cultural
oppression
and
economic
control and
it determined the
critique of pas t and present power-relations
in
world
ffairs (Post o l o w Studies:
Re-,
106). When
postct>lonialism was read as a simple binarism between
west
and the
rest,
Europe and i t s 'other*,
colonizer
and
th
colonized,
the most
turbulent
and ideologically
ambivalent area remained
the
semi-periphery.
Gordimer
was historically
positioned
at this blurred and rather
transitional area of what
Slemon
t rms
the
radical
ambivalence of colonialismis middle ground0 (107).
Gordimer's stories derive several
of
their features due
to
this
positioning. The
political
concern was
to
reinscribe the centre/periphery relations and t hu s bestow
the valency of
legitimacy
in the colonized discourse.
This restructuring
of t h e
power relation, was achieved
through
t h e social
realism of
the
t e x t Gordimer defines
herself as
a romantic dealing
with realityf' (EG,
2 8
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B u t reality
in
her
text privileges
h e r
ideology as a
dominant
structure
determining i t s
own imaginary
'psuedo-
history.' In
the
Eagleton
sense
of
the
word,
'pseudo-
history1
explains
the
relation between
word or
the t e x t
.
and
historical reality. In
Crlticlsm
and Ideolosv,
Eagleton has clarified that
r a the r
than 'imaginatively
transforming the real t h e literary work is the
production
of certain produced representations of reality
into an
imaginary
objectr'(75).
The
truth of the
social
realism in
a
society legally segregated by apartheid
rules had its peculiar disadvantages. The writer
having
to negotiate between extremes she can only
be
a
syncretist
and hybridizer. tephen Gray comments
t h a t
in
a country of social fragmentation like South
A f r i c a
the
position
of the writer becomes
even
more
crucial
for th e
'realism* in the text. Then the
basic
act of writing
is one
of carrying
information across one
or
another
socio-political
barriersf'
(On
Kistorioara~hv
of SouU
African
Uterat-
48).
Here Gray s s the
realism
of the narrative as part of the m i te r s
duty
to
'translate'
or
'transferf data
across the boundaries
from
one audience to
anotherf1
4 8 ) .
Gordimerls
inaccessibility into
the
black world except in her
imagination has seriously affected h r concep t
of
the
black consciousness. As Gordirner
herself
admits in
English Language
Literature
and
Politics
in South
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Africat1,
the gap in experience between black and
white
lives produces cardboard and unconscious
caricatureJ' Christopher Heywood ed., 119). This
flaw
is applicable for the
black
writers too
when
they
portray
white characters. Gordimer
attributes
uilt as
t h e
major
emotion of a white
writer
and r s ntm nt as
that
of
the
black
writer. Either case gets
blurred
by the
inability
to
identify
with
the society s a whole. But
she
has the inside information about
the
white race and
its colonial ideology which s h e
t r ans f e r s
c ro s s the
color barriers. Thus awakening
the whites
to
the reality
in their
colonial
myth
of
lies', s h e strives
for
a etter
social
consciousness,
The very
'trembling
instability of
the
balance
becomes the
ultimate
proof of t h e author
morality;
her
commitment to
truth.
The
truth
of
the society calls for
a
change
in
the
power
relations,
which in turn questions the legitimacy
of
the
white authority.
The
relationship
between
literature
and
politics,
through t s
medium of
society
which form
the
substructure
of
both, is illuminated
in
G o r d i m e r l s social realism. Sartre in
h i s study
has
connected this
aspec t
in
For Whom
D ~ e s ne Write. e
has analyzed the effect of truth, on any society:
If the society
sees
itself t h e writer
presents the
society with
t s image; he
calls
upon
it to assume it or to change it.
At any
rate
it
changes;
it
loses
its
equilibrium
which
t s ignorance had given
it
it wavers between
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shame and
cynicism;
it
practices
dishonesty;
thus the
writer
gives
society
g u i l t y
conscience
he
is
thereby
in
a
state
of
perpetual
antagonism
towards the conservative
forces
which maintain the
balance he
tends
to
upsetfJ ( m t s
m u r e ? ,
8 8 .
Gordimer knows that
words
cre te reactions and she
resolves the f a l s e myths of colonialism
t h a t
has
disfigured the
cul ture
and
progress
of the
society
Achebe
believed that the novelist is teacher.
Gordimer,
on the other hand is primarily an artist,
though
committed
to her society. She has no specific
lesson
to preach. But the
very narrative
mode she
chooses conveys some hidden message. In her words,
Gordimer
equalizes
her ideological
commitment
with h r
aesthetic
sensibility.
Most of Gordimerfs narratives
being
in
t h e pure present ,
the
mode is o f t e n transitory.
Events follow
one
a f t e r the other
and
the ownerls] of the
'voicesJ
are rarely identified. It is in t h e
intepellation
o these
voices that, Gordimer fixes
the
meaning
of
her
text.
Dagmer
Barnauw in
he
article,
Nadine Gordimer:
Dark
ime s
Interior
worlds and
Obscurities of
Differencet'
asserts
that
GordirnerJs
intense
involvement
with the
black
struggle h a s
enlarged
the
problematic of 'mixed discoursef
or
the
presence of other
voices
not
of her
making
and not
entirely of her choice,
(Conte-
Literature,
266 .
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Achronistic
and
without
a name, these voices bring
out
t h
'real'
meaning hidden
within the
situations.
Being
preoccupied
w i t
the
qlimpses
of
truth
that
flashes
i n
the ordinary events
of
black/white relationships,
th
natural
order of cause and
effect in
the
na r r a t i v e seems
to recede into less obvious light.
Most of
the
stories
focus on seemingly
uneventful
c h r c t e r s
and
as the plot
thickens
the emphasis
previously placed
suddenly
gathers
momentum
and a
political statement
is unravelled The
cultural
ambivalence
in
the author leads to a
carnival
of voices
in t h e t e x t
The
culture
of t h e oppressive race to which
Gordimer
b e lo n g s
and the
culture of the oppressed
black
race
for
whom
s h e
fights,
causes
a certain
oscillation
in
her
narrative.
The
s t or y
A
City
Of
the
Dead, A City of
t h e Living develops along this kind of an oscillation.
The
story
is printed
in the italics as well as normal
print.
The
intermittent narrative
s rv s to
illuminate
the different p o i n t s of perceptions.
While Naneki was
supportive
of her
husband's
political activities, she had
her private
hatred/fear of the aftermath of such
an
involvement.
Her
love f o r her husband
and
her
children
whom she cannot keep with her weakens
her
political
commitment
her personal subjectivity, clashes
with
her
'political
subjectivity.'
Gordimer
studies Naneki
r o m
a universal platform as a
woman,
and
tries to
yok
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this
image with that
of a
political sympathizer. In the
process
of hybridization,
several conflicts arise nd
the
character of
Naneki
seems
to
have
several
shades
of
meaning at different
points
in the
narrative. Living
in
a
small
quarter of
the
black
township,
she
w s
forced into
accept ing
a
political activist
as
her
house guest.
Naneki s
attitude towards this intruder
begins
on a note
of fear,
and
as
the
narrat ive progresses it changes
to
intimacy a
kind
of sexual attraction), and later to
pity. At the
end of
t h e story s h e
herself
cruelly
b e t r a y s
h i s presence to
t h e
police
and condemns
him. This
transformation
of
Naneki
from an obedient house-wife
into
a police spy, surprises and intrigues the reader
Gordimer herself is
treading
on soft
grounds:
Naneki
being a
black
subject
outside
t h e
experience
of the
author
the
narrative
moves to
a
free indirect style.
Nanekits use
of
colloquialism, cliche
and euphemism
draws
attention to the uncertain distance
between
narrator and
the
character And t he
ambient
nature of
the tone
and
diction adds to
this
effect.
Naneki reflects
on the
noncommittal
answer
of
t h e
re el to her inquiry about h i s
children
if any with a note
of disapproval
and pique. Her
conscience reads
his smile as
a
rebuff.
She
speaks to
herself:
Perhaps it
meant
he does, pretends he
doesn t
know
--
thinks
a lot of himself, smart young man
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with gold
ring
in
his
ear
has
plenty of girl-
friends
to get
babies w i t him =, 18).
The
pig-din
used
by
Naneki could be
the
reflection
of the
alienation
she
feels
towards
the
rebel and her
lack
of understanding as to, the political energy that
makes him and h i s k ind
do
what they do.
he 'inner
dialoguer
of
Naneki s a woman, and as a
unit
of
a
mass
political awakening,
is
at conflict within her Gordimer
brings
o u t
the
conflict
between the
individual
and
t h e
society in t h e inner dialogues
of
Naneki. When
Moreke
initially br ings in t h e political refugee, her attitude
was
outright resistance
what for?, w s her reaction
t
Moreke s
pleading
Later
when Moreke
explained
t h a t
her
cousin Mtembu had brought the refugee, she argues:
Well I will tell
i m
no, If
Mtembu
needs
somewhere
t
stay,
I
have
to
take
him.
But not
anyone he brings from the s t r t m , 3).
This resistance
melts
away as the days
pass.
She
even
buys
him beer and makes conversation with him in
the
absence of Moreke. But finally she betrays i m to the
police.
This
incongruity in
her behavior
is not
explained
from
within,
but simply shown from the
outside.
he
reader
is kept in t h e dark s to t h e
real
reasons.
Naneki,
is presented
without any authorial comment on her
i n n e r s l f
and
the
reader is
left
to come to
h i s
own
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conclusions. The splintered
frame,
of cultural
ambivalence
is
transposed on t Naneki. The narrator's
implicit
attitude
wavers
between
sympathy
and
indifference. The reader is
given
an insight into the
consciousness of Naneki and
t h e
authorial
voice,
without
being led
to
assume
that any one
of them
had dominance
over
the
o t h e r This technique implies a feeling that,
t h e reader is o t
crudely
being t o l d about
t h e
plight of
Naneki, but it is as
if
for a moment t h re der is
permitted into the collective consciousness
and
is
allowed
to experience it
Naneki t h e mother
of
t h e
family
is in conflict
with Naneki
the individual in a society
scheming for
a
political revolution.
Gordimer
ha s
portrayed the dilemma of
individuals in the
politically
turbulent environment.
She dramatizes
the human side
of
the
sacrifices
and
fears
involved
in
a
political
resistance.
Gordimer
has
portrayed
t h
ambiguity
of
cultural
duality
in
the
postcolonial con t ex t from
the
white
consciousness in the story Comrades
J A O S ,
9
.
Here
the
incongruity between the thoughts and
deeds
of
a
sympathetic liberal is
focused.
Being kind enough to
offer food f o r t h e
hungry
compatriots,
t h e
white
narrator
suddenly recoils
into her
own
cultural framework and
f l s
the alienation when she
\\did
o t
want
them to see
that
t h e
maid
waited on
h r t f
9 3 ) . She
herself
carried
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the heavy tray into the drawing room.
hat
could have
been the reason f o r
this
swift switch, in
attitude?
There
is
a
condition
of
dual
cultural
platform
from which
the
people of the society interacted with each other. This
non-
uniformity
could
be the major
barrier in developing
a
national
culture; a nation.
In
depicting
t h e social
reality of colonial society Gordimer
highlights
these
conflicts
without
resolving
it simply
to
awaken
t h e
s o c i a l consciousness of
t h e s e
semi-peripheryff areas.
In
the
social reality of
t h colonized the
most
evident manifestation of oppression is in the economic
sector. The
widened
gap between
the colonizer
and the
colonized, and the
legal
system that maintained the
disparity,
could
be
zeroed
in
as
t h e
very
basic
problem
of
social injustice,
in
the post independent
state.
And
Gordimer has dealt with t h i s problem at
large
in
her
various short
stories.
Interchanging the color of the
victim and
t h e victimizer, the
narrative ranges
from
mild
emotions
of pity and sadness to passionate explosions of
politic l
outbursts.
The
encounter
between
the
'poort
black man and t h e 'richt
white girl in
the
1s There
Nowhere
else We Can Meet?, w s at a
physical
level
of
\'regression. The
girl
in t h e
story later wonders
why
sh e
d i d
n o t give him
t h e bag
even
though she h d f e l t
pity towards h i s pathetic shirt and hungry face. t t h e
actual
moment
when
he grabbed
her bag her instincts were
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to fight
h im . Xere,
t h e focus o the narrative is
the
r e t u r n
of
the repressedf
in
the white
g i r l
which made
h e r
subdued
by
f e a r e r
racial
unconscious
t a k e s
precedence over her reason
and
judgment. The Whites were
not willing to
give
up any
of the
power or t h e wealth
they
had exhorted from the Blacks. The narrative exposes
the
racist (unconscious)
i n
the white girl The
conqueror
was not willing to part w i t t h e
wealth
which she has
illegally collected from t h e colonized
victim.
That
was
the
fundamental position of the colonial dialogues.
According
to Fanon,
t he fundamental characteristic
of
postcolonial literature
is
located
in
the imperial
colonial
dialectic itselfw:
Th e
c t
of
writing
texts
of
any
kind
in
the
post
colonial areas , is subject to the political
imaginative and social
control,
involved
in
the
social
relationship between t h e
colonizer
and
t h e
colonized
m i r e writes Back, 29 .
This
resistance
to
p a r t
w i t the
wealth that
has
been illegally
amassed
is perfectly illustrated by
Gordimer in t h i s story
The
same
theme
gets repeated in
several of
Gordirner s
s t or i e s B u t each would have a
peculiar
way o
presentation
which would
bring
o u t yet
another perspective of
the
same colonizer/colonized
dichotomy.
slightly
different
sha de
of t h e f t is
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described
in Spoils. Here
t h e
dialogue leads
to
a
discussion
of the legitimacy of
native
criminality.
And
t h e argument go s that can you say
t h a t
is mine'
to
people whose land was taken
from
them by
conquest,
gigantic
hold-up
at the
point of imperial guns? (JOAS,
168). The justification
of
n t i v e s
in their acts
of
violence is a
method
of
re-scribing
the
authority
in
the
postcolonial
context. Gordimer understands
the black
cause
and their
struggle
f o r
survival in
a
calcified
and
oppressed system, and tries
in
her narrative
to show
this
'truthful' image
of the society
to
itself. This
then
becomes her political program of
deconstructing
colonialism.
Briefly, her postcolonial
writings
are
all
bou t
the
crisis of authority of the European center or
''a
crisis of cultural authority i r e a , 62).
This transfer of authority o th legal and
social was the
political
purpose
of GordimerFs t e x t Janmohammed
has
summarized Gordimerfs
dilemma
and
reactions to the
colonial
aspect of
her
society:
While writing
and educating
herself, Nadine
Gordimer experienced
a
radical
psychological
rupture which she calls a second
birth1
s h e
discovered t h e
grea t
South African
1 The
realization
that
the
white
society
was trying
to
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conceal the
simple
fact that blacks were people,
led
her to
understand
h r
identity as
a o u t h
African
had
to
be
formed
t h r o u g h
a
resolution
of
t h e
black/white
dichotomy,
that
t h e
two races
had to
be unified
under a
central definitive
experience of black and white as
people
with
undifferentiated claims to life, whatever else
skin, language,
culture
might distinguish
them
from
one
another
m c h e m
Aesthetics,
85 .
And
her search for
identity and placing
in
the
independent
South Africa,
can be traced
in v a r i o u s
political
and
ideological voices
in
her post-colonial
narratives. Gordimer is
exploring
the possibilities of
a
peaceful and just co-existence of
the
black
and
white
race, in
a de-colonized South
Africa.
When the
social
reality in the text, endeavors to
deconstruct
the myth of
colonialism,
then comes the
problem of South African
\futureJ.
In t h e t e x t she
advocates a
cultural
syncrenityf
as referred
to by
Raymond
Williams,
in building a new s t a t e
finally free
from t h e
European
experience. In this
multicultural
theory, t h e
social framework s h a l l be based
on
difference
on
equal terms. n d then an
acceptance of
post-coloniality is no longer a badge,
of
shame,
or of
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i m a t u r i t y
but
a sign
of
distinction and difference''
mire Writes Back, 163). contemporary
concept
of
post-coloniality
is evident
in
Gordimer's acceptance of
the black world as an equal with
a 'difference'. Gordirner
seems to
abide
by the definition of
post-coloniality
by
Gauri Vishwanathan in her
interview
' ' I s s u e s [ w i t h
Bahri
A study
of
the cultural interaction between the
colonizing
powers and the
societies
they
colonized
and
the
traces
that
this
interaction
h a s
l f t
on the literature, arts, and human
sciences
of bo th
societies being
more
or
less an
a t t i t u d e or
position from
which
the
de-centering of Eurocentrism may
ensue
u,
2 6
1,
52).
This
study
of post-colonialism begins
on the term
difference.
In
colonial literature, the black man
was
the 'other-side' of the European
civilized
psyche; the
dark side of
man. The
element of fear promulgates from
the frightening
alternative
of discovering in
the
'primitive*
the
true
and
permanent
face
of
the
other,
that
'rough beast
whose
turn comes around at
last,
threatening
to overwhelm
the high
European
civilization
w e rites Back 158). This
alienation
felt
by
the
whi te man made
h i m
suppress t h e n a t i v e with the aid of
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ensuring
the
readers sympathy
the narrative
e n j o y s
terrorizing. The regal metaphor of t h e lion and t h e
suggestive calm
of
t h e dark night
becomes
n
allegory
of
the political arena
in
South
Africa.
The
narrative is
achronistic and lacks the normal flow of cause and
event s . It is just
a
collection
of
metaphors, closely
packed together so that t h e adjectives and images often
overlap.
There can be three chains of parallel
narratives: t h a t
of
the
sexual
liberation,
that
of
t h e
lion that groans in the oo which escapes
into
the
freeway, and that of the centipede advancing.
The
tempo
of
the narrative is
built up
into a res ent and the
anticipation
the jubilant anticipation
of politic l
liberation juxtaposed as the escape
o the
caged lion,
g i v e s t h e
narrative the
rhythm of
a
chant.
The story has
three independent images
and train of
thoughts,
which
are
superimposed without actually
resolving. The
first among
the
parallel
narratives
is that
of
the
sexual
liberation.
"Open
up Open
up
Open your
legsf (=,
2 4 ) . Spoken
without a
definite
person
to claim t h e
monologue,
this
forms
an
interlude to the more
important
and relevant
theme of political liberation that develops
in
the other
t w
analogous. The allusion to 'leviathan (that) hooted
from the night fog at sea and t h e 'Baltic'
gives
the
narrative a mythical archive
of
"winter ' ' imagery
in
Fryers s e n s e . Morbid
and
suggestive of an impending doom,
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the images are tumbling one after another , deste loping a
breathless anxiety that
had
the
inevitability
of an
A f r i c a n
Oracle. The second image is
of
a majestic lion,
caged
and tamed
which subtly develops into
a
terror when
it e s c a p e s . The abundant potential asleep in the
suppressed n a t i v e that
would soon
awaken to
cla im their
land, is crystallized into t h e
story
of
t h e
lion. The
f a l s e notions that built up the 'colonial myth'
of
\docilef native
is deconstructed when
Gordimer declares
roar
is
not
the
w o r d M 2 5 ) . The
narrative
brings
out
t h e
incongruity of the word
\roart
in
describing
t h e
majestic
voice
of t h e king
of
the jungle. Whoever decided
that
had never
listene to
the
r e a l t h i n g n 2 5 ) . If only t h e
whites
had
bothered
to listen they would have
known
the
r e a l i t y of
t h e
society. The foreign aspect of the s e t t l e r
made
h i m
unfit
and ignorant
of
t h e
land
he conquered
unlawfully,
by t h e sheer power
of h i s scientific
advancement. The word roar w s 'tonomatopoeically
i n c o r r e c t
just as t h e
heraldic beasts drawn by t h e
thirteenth and fourteenth century at
second
hand
r o m t h observations of e a r l y explorers are anatomically
wrongn120).
The superficial complacency or 'docility'
in
the
caged
lion that '%yawnsf'
and waits
f o r the ready-
slaughtered kill to be tossed at
them
rings like a
premonition of
the
political uprising that
would
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eventually awake t h e colonized to freedom The
lion
was
orn in the
c a g e t J as
the
present
generation o
blacks
were
b r n
as
'colonized.'
And
although
they
know
nothing but
the Zoo, the
future
warns
of
a
time when
they escape
into t h freeway.
The terror
of
t h e n r r t i v e
arises from
the continual s h i f t
from
the images of
'jungle'
to
that
of
'modernity.'
The
concrete freeway
represented
the
technically advanced
west
and the raw
power
of
t h e
Lion symbolizes t h e
free native.
The
picture
of an
escaped lion
n the
freeway, illustrates the basic
d e f a u l t
of mixed-up power-relations within contradictory
cultural
corpus.
Whites
cannot or rather
should
o t
reject
the
native laws as pr- imit ive or wrong, j us t
because they
were
alien to
their
value-system. The story
\ A
ion On The Freeway'', deals w i t h
the complete
ignorance
of the hite race about t h e reality
of
the
native, and the false myths they came to believe a b u t
t h e
land
they
conquered, and
the
impending
disaster
caused
by this
incongruity in
the white-man's ideology.
T h e
false
consciousness
of
the white
man
,and
t h e
difference
in
t h e native are presented in such way as
to
r e i n s t a t e
honor into the (majestic) black race.
The
images t h t
refer
to the
blacks are
chosen from t h e
regal
order. The absoluteness of
t h e
violent fate that awaits
t h e
white race
is
effectively brought
out
in t h e imagery
of
t h e
advancing centipeder'
a
thick
prancing
black
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centipede with thousands of waving legs a d v a n c i n g ( 2 7 ) .
Terror rises
from
t h slow
b u t sure
nature of the
advancing
black
force. The
narrative
swiftly shifts i t s
address
from
t h e
white listener
to
the
black
revolutionary.
In
a single sentence the 'voice' of t h
Black, which is chailenge wait for
it,
a n d t h e
\voicef of t h e
Whites'
fear
waiting
for i t t r
is
clubbed
together.
Later the terrible observation of the white
man
who
watches
the
\ \prancelt
of
t h e
centipede,
is
continued by the
black
man's slogan advance, over
carefully
-tended p l e a s e keep o f f the grass 2 7 ) . But in
refusing to disclose
the
narrator, t h e voices are
ambiguously super-imposed. The tone
suddenly
becomes
violent
and
aggressive,
almost
like
a war-cry.
h e text
encourages t h e bloody
transition of power
from
t h e hands
o sleepy white couple
Jack and
h i s woman, to t h e
escaped
Lion. The terms like \delivered,(
\splendid head'
and
'claim'
bestow royalty on
t h e black
cause.
Gordimer
here,
re-functions
the
colonial myth of
fear of
the
native, and
renders
it
an
illegitimate
f e a r ; o t deserving of our
sympathy. In
t h e narrative,
t h e fear of
the
nativer
becomes as reasonable
as
'fear
o God'
or \fear of t h e law.'
T h u s
t h e
white
claim to
rule
the native
is
reduced
to
an
illegitimate
i n t r u s i o n
which
indeed it was Towards the end, when he's
delivered himself
of i t , and t h e lion moves into
the
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freeway,
bewildered,
finding
h i s
way, turning h i s
splendid
head at
last to
claim,
what he's
n e v e r seen, the
land
where
he's
king ,
the
v o i c e
s
applauding
t h e
victory with kind
of patriotic passion.
he
theme of
political deliverance transcends t h e
pre s en t and
becomes
a trans-historical prediction; a hope of t h e
nation. Gordimer is creating t h e historical reality, on
the
ideology of free
and
liberated
South
Africa, r i d
of
the
white
sins
of
her
forefathers
This rebuilding
of nation,
is
part
of the
resistance
literature,
which again
is a trait of post-colonial
writings. Stephen Slemon in his
study
Resistance
Theory
for
the
Second
World,'#
clarifies resistance as an c t
or set
of acts, that is designed to
r i d
a people of t s
oppressors and it so
thoroughly
infuses
the experience
of living under oppression that it becomes an almost
autonomous aesthetic principle (post-colonial Studies
Reader,
107).
Whenever,
literature
of any politically oppressed
n a t i o n , t a k e s on
the
element
of resistance, it does so
most
effectively
by presenting the
soci l
reality,
interpellating 'political
subjects
into t h e narrative.
And
the
contradictory aspect of
'settler-subjectivity,'
surf ces s the ambivalent nature of
t h e
t o n e and t e n o r
of the voices in
t h e narrative. Resistance
writings being
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t h e
contradictory representation of colonial authority
(108) the t x t
o f t e n heralds
several voices. Gordimerfs
text
often
contains
this
plurality
of
independent
and
unmerged
voices and consciousness, which evidences
her
marginality
and its
resulting
oscillation, As Clingman
points out
* .
. t h ere is still a
crucial
sense n which
s h e is
divided
from t h e black world, even at those
moments of her closest approach*'
G o r u
2 0 8 .
Thus
he understood
h r
structural
\silencesr,
aps and
\contradictionsf
as
her
boundaries
of visiontJ, due to
social fragmentation
(210).
Gordimer s split historic position, arises f r o m
the
basic
conflict
within
herself
--
a
colonizer
advocating against colonialism. Gordimer may be t h o u g h t
of as a non-organic intellectual -- linked mentally to
the oppressed
classes, but
not physically
or
materially
(Clingman,
217).
Her realism,
hence
had t h e interplay
of several voices and
can
be studied as a t r u l y
'dialogic'
narrative.
In
h r
fiction
s h e
effects
t h e
dialogue of
the
oppressor and oppressed and thus becomes
th e 'other
place'
where
both
t h e
worlds meet.
What are the features Gordimer envisages in the
' o t h e r
placef -- where t h e
f u t u r e rests. Here t h e
question
of
national
culture
and
national
literature
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arises,
The
Afr ican
writer's
t a s k , like t h e
politician's,
Soyinka argues is to work
towards
a future, in
which
the
influence of colonial i n j u s t i c e ,
aesthetic and
cultural
onstructions is modified po s t colonial J , i t e r a t u r e ,
7 .
Gordimer
is
firmly part of a developing non-racial
culture n South Africa and her life as a writer
indicates the centrality
of
this
aspect .
Within such a
'newf
South Africa sh e scribbles out
t h e
'place'
of
the
white race. Being major feature of post-colonial
writing,
this
concern
wi th
place
and
displacementfr
m i r e
Writes Ba&,
9
enters her narrative. In those
t e x t s that d e a l t with
Gordimer's
visions
of
f u tur e ,
this crisis
of identity
comes
i n t o being; the
conce rn
with the
development
or
recovery
of an
effective
identifying
relationship between
self and
placef'
9).
Here,
'place'
becomes
vibrant
and 'live'
entity
of
postcolonial
reality.
The
significance of \pl ac eJ which is
post-colonial
trait can be
traced in Gordimer's
story
Inkalamaufs
Placeff WYW, 156).
With
kind of determined
effort
Gordimer builds t h e 'place' Inkalamau's
Place1'
in
her
fiction
s symbol of
colonialism and
then
enjoys
the
pleasure of
watching it
crumple.
The
t e x t is
deconstructing
t h e
white
colonial
myth in
t h e very
literary
sense as well.
The
nar ra t i v e
voice
is
from
a
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w h i t consciousness,
and
it is a
settler-culture t h t
it
abhors throughout the
t e x t Apart from t h e main narrator
there are t w other live voices,
that
of the black
man
on
t h e bicycle, and
that
of Nonny. The
remaining
subjects
are
perceived
through the
consciousness of
the white
n a r r a t o r .
The
center of the narrative,
Inkalamau
,is long
dead and gone
before
the time of
the
narration, T h e
post colonial story
re-scribes Inkalamau
from
the myth
of a
superior conqueror,
owner
of
wealth and knowledge,
to that of a mere
plunderer.
This difference between myth
and
reality,
in the life
and
home of Inkalamau, is the
focus of t h e t e x t .
It was said that Inkalamau
Williamson
had made
this
mile
and
a
half long avenue
to
h i s
house after the
carriage
way
in h i s
family
estate in England; but it is more likely that,
in the elevation
af
their social status that
used to go on
in people s
minds when
they
come
out
to the
colonies,
his memory
of that road t
the
great
house
was
the
village b y s qame
of
imagining himself
the
owner as
he trudged up on
an errand S ,
57 .
Inkalamau was f a r
from
being
an
aristocratd. He
was
nothing but a thief and an unlawful
oppressor .
In the
p o s t independent
days,
when t h e white n a r r a t o r perceives
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the end of colonial era in 'the house that
w s sagging
under its
own
weight, she felt no nostalgia, only
recognitionP 158).
The
house
that Inkalamau
built
a s
a
petty replica of an English country house, did not f a l l
on
h i s
head
t h e
way
everyone predicted.
But
the
n a r r a t o r
f e a r s it
might fall
on her head. The
fear
that t h e
colonial legacy would rebound
on
the
sympathetic
whites
of the post-independent
era is
lurking
in the
words.
Depicted as poor specimen
of t h e White
civilization,
Inkalamau is
the
assimilation
of
all vices
that corrupted
t h e
colonizer. His
e x p l o i t s
of native
women and h i s reluctance to accept h i s own wife and
children
as his
family,
shows
h i s r a c i s t
attitude. i s
unexplained love for books and medicines from abroad,
could
n o t save him from a prolonged and painful
death. He
n e ve r
e n j o y s
the
sympathy
of
t h e
narrator
that
no
guilt
or remorse
is
attached to
the plight
of his dilapidated
p l a c e . On
the
contrary, t h e narrator experiences a
sadistic
pleasure in
seeing
the destruction
caused by
nature and time on the epitome of colonial
glory.
She
exclaims h o w good that it was all being t a k e n
apart
by
i n s e c t s
washed
away
by
t h e
rain,
disappearing
into
the
e a r t h ,
carried
away and digested, fragmented t o compost
f x 60). The
relief
from guilt
resonates
in t h e
return
of the stolen goods
back
to
the
land
itself
The
white
guilt
t h a t
was
a prominent feature of t h e
post-colonial
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white-writing, forms
part
of the t h eme
of
Inkalamau s
place.
Excessive
use
of
animal
imagery
is
a
notable
f e a t u r e
of
this story.
Relevant
and
p o i g n a n t these metaphors
bring o u t t h e irony and dual graph of symbolism and
reality,
in
t h e
apparently action-less story. The
similies a r e
all on
the
African animal sector.
While
contemplating the
final
destruction of t h e colonial
edifice,
the
narrative
refers
to
t h e
'swiftsr
and
the
bats that would
join
with
the
rains
to
bring down t h e
mud castle. If
swift
could be
read
s t h e
motif
f o r
writers, and \batf that of
a
t rrifying r a d i c a l r a i n
could
be th advent
of time, all
of which played
complimentary
ro les in
bringing down t h colonial
edifice.
Though
t h e
writers
and
the
radicals
did
j o i n
with general change
in t h e
global attitudes, to
crush
t h e
colonialism, it
is
t h e ants w o bring t h e grave
to
the
house, in
the endJr
(162).
These insignificant
black creatures that were
in abundance
in t h e
jungles of
t h e dark continent,
remind one of
the black
native
whose
collective
consciousness
finally
drew
t h e curtain
on
t h e white
man's
performance. The s t o r y c a n be read s
an allegory
on
the fall of
t h e
Empire,
and the
i nhe r en t satisfaction in
the arrival
of a new
era
for the blacks and t h e
whites
of South Africa.
While discussing
t h e
local
schools with
Nonny,
t h e
narrator
ecomes
aware
of
a
stab
o
s a t i s f a ~ t i o n , ~
t
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the past
t h a t they
could s h a r e as they had never been
able
to before
Here,
Gordimer romanticizes over the
future
where the black white
dichotomy
is
finally
resolved Romance
enters t h text
as
a
wistful
imagination, against all t h
stark
realities of 'poverty'
and 'disease.' The realist n
t h e
narrative
is
aware
of
the great
odds against which the
goals
are
set Nonny
is
not a jubilant winner, but a skeptical
wa t ch e r
of the
political happenings
which
are
often
pushed
back
due
to
reasons of
abject
poverty. he realist, in Gordimer
refuses to idealize the white consciousness as
an
all-embracing
lover of the black
race.
When Nonny
explains to the narrator about the
eye-infection
of
t h e
baby, she
reprimands
herself
n o t to
touch her face until
s h e
can
wash
h r
hands.
s
if, within
the
subjectivity
of
a sympathetic
white, she was
fully
aware
of
t h e
poverty-stricken
and disease-ridden social
conditions
of
the blacks T h i s 'life-like' mixture of truth,
dreams
and
reality, is
one
of
t h e
salient
features
of
Gordimer's
text.
In
the words of Althrusser the peculiarity of
art
s
to 'make us s e e * , 'make us perceive8
\make
us feel'
something
which
alludes to realityJ'( nin
and Philoso~hv
m other
e s savs ,
2 0 4 .
He aptly says:
what
art makes us
s
and therefore g i v e s to us
in
the
form
of 'seeing', \perceivingt and
'feeling'
is
the ideology from which
it
is
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born, in which it bathes, from which
it
detaches
itself a s art and
t o
which i t
lludes
1 2 0 4 .
Gordimer tries to de-colonize the culture and set
it
free
of
the
'shame8 and
the 'stigma' of
t h e servility
undergone
by
t h e b lack race. wo
major trends
can
be
traced into the
intellectual awakening
towards an
independent
South Africa. The fundamentalist
attitude
of
\cleansingf the
black world
of
the corrupting alien
culture was suggested by many black writers.
On
the other
hand,
there were
others
who
advocated
'cultural
syncrenity.'
study
on
the
cultural
h i s t o r y of
nations
exposes the crudity
or
regression
in the
policy
of racial
purity
Diana
Brydon, in
her
essay
The White
Intuit
Speaks,
has
analyzed
the
cult of
authenticity
A
blind
arbitration of
rac i a l pur i t y among
the
wh i t e s ,
according
to
her,
will, prove self-defeating because
they
depend
on a view of cultural authenticity that condemn
them
t o
con t inued marginality
and
an
eventual
deathf'
Post-c o l o d l
Studies
Reader
141).
Gordimer on the
other
hand
visualizes
a
'new
globalism,'
that
simultaneously
asserts
local independence and global
interdependenciesf' (141).
Without
attempting to ignore
the
white
influence
on
the society
and culture
o
South
Africa, she takes a practical and commonsensical stance
for
'cultural
syncrenity.' Gordimer it
seems, s e e k s a
way
to
cooperate
without
co-option
a way
to
define
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8/11/2019 Deconstruction of the Colonial Myth
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differences
that
do not depend on myths of cultural
purity
or authenticity
but that
thrive
on an interaction
that
'contaminates'
without
homogenizing.
. (141)-
The cultural syncrenity that Gordimer depicts in t h e
t e x t m rg s
from
the multitude of 'voices. he
poliphony of the unnamed voices, often reflect
on t h e
oppressive conditions of the voiceless subaltern.
This
tendency to
lend
voice,
for
t h e colonized, is a major
post-colonial feature in
the
t e x t of
Gordimer.
In the
story of
the
young
activists
that
the narrator t a k e s
home, after
a political
meeting
they
h t h attended, t h e
interplay of voices can be studied. Comrades,
is
about
the gulf that always e x i s t s between the Blacks and t h e
Whites
who
work for
the
political
independence
of
the
nation
JAQS, 91 . he
common
goal that they work for
iffere
in the matter of sourcing,
and method. This is
highlighted
i n
t h e contrast
between
the youngsters and
the White narrator.
They
were
'hungry*
not
for iced
whisky and feet upt f (93).
And
the voice says they need
carbohydrate, they
are
hungry, they
are
young,
they
need
it
they burn
it upJ (94). This repetition emphases
t h e
basic
nature
of
t h e black cause, as
opposed to t h t
of
the
white
lady in
the grand mansion equipped with English
education
and
all
t h e luxuries
imaginable,
who
fights
o r
human liberation. The
narrative
shifts
rather swiftly
r o m the dominant discourse to
that
of t h e subaltern.
It
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is
difficult
to be a s s u r e d that
the
voice that s
emerging
is really the subaltern and
not
the simple
European
other . The ambiguity in the
authenticity
of
the
white
lady s
commitment towards
the
black
cause and
t h e
degree
of variation is projected
in the story,
Is
sh
really on t h e s i d e of
t h e
blacks? Or
could
she be
pretending, even
to
herself that she
is fighting
f o r the
downtrodden?
i n c e
she
could
never assimilate
the
black
revolutionaries and
their basic hunger,
could
she still
e able to understand their
much more
complicated need to
be
free
of
the
white culture?
The credibility of the
narrator s
understanding
of
the political
struggle
is rather
doubtful
in the
story.
The
voicef
is
sometimes
that
of
a
polite
English
woman
e t at other times, it acquires
a
deeper
insight
into the
o t h e r .
f
T h e author does
not
clarify t h e true
nature of
the narrator and
characteristically
leaves
the
conclusions to
the
reader s
sensibility.
But,
the text
carefully
captures t h e
ambiguity in t h e white
consciousness.
When
the
lady asks \ --are
you at
school
t h e answer comes
not
from t h e children but t h e
narrator herself:
Of
course he
is
not at s hoo l -- th y are n o t at
school, youngsters their ge have o t been at
school
f o r several years, t h e y
are
t h e
children
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growing into young men and women, for whom
school
is battlegroun d, place of
boycotts
and
demonstrations,
t h e
literacy
of
political
rhetoric, t h e education
of
r e v o l t
against
having
to
live
the
life their pa r en t s live 93).
Language
is
v i o l a t e d to bring
o u t
t h e effect of
violations imposed upon the natives.
Postcolonial
writings
have this
tendency to
avail of long-winding
sentences that orm a sub t ex t of violence in themselves.
Katrak
points out in
the essay A Theory
f o r
Postcolonial
Women's Text, t h e utilization of the very
construction of the language in
the
text towards
pronouncing a political
statement.
Katrak asserts
that
a
version
of
the
cultural
and
economic
violence
perpetrated
by the colonizer
is
now appropriated by
writers i n order
to
v i o l a t e t h e
English
language
in
i t s
standard
use
(Enst
olonial tudies Reader, 250 .
When the
lady
further
inquires in the typical
pat t e rn of an European cultural conduc t
So
what
have
you
been able
to do w i t h
yourself, a l l
t h a t
time? t h e
shocking
r e p l y
comes
from
the little,
oy
neck I
was
inside Detained r o m this June f o r s i x months . The
subtext of violence and
power struggle that
disrupts an
unequal
social
c o n d i t i o n emerges
as the voices overlap
unceasingly. In Gord imer ts text nothing really
happens;
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32/37
but m u h is suggested.
he
meditative quality
in
her
writings c a n
be
attributed to
t h e
marginal nature o h e r
existence.
In
t h e
story
of
Comrades,
the
cruelty
and
child violence
of
Sharpville is
relived
without
t h e
stench
of blood. Suddenly as the narrator cannot
believe what she knows: that they, suddenly here,
i n
her
house
will
carry AK 7s they
will
only sing about
now,
miming death as they
singf'
( 9 6 , the entire panorama of
a
nation sacrificing
i t s
children
on
t h e
alter of freedom
comes
alive.
Gordimer
further analyses the black/white
disparity
in
the story.
When
the
narrator in her
confusion, break
the silence:
says something, anything,'
and b l u r t s how do
you
like my lion?
Isn't
he
beautiful?
He's made
by
a
Zimbabwean a r t i s t
I
th ink
his
name is
Dube--,'I
she unwittingly
embarks
upon the revelation. To
t h e black children the affluence
of
an Eurocentric
culture and values of t s antiquity
had
no meaning.
Only
the food that
fed
their hunger was real.'' This
effectively brings out the wide gap
that
opens between
t h e
white
and
the
black segments
of
the
South
African
society.
An authentic consciousness
of this social
reality is achieved in t h narrative.
African
cultural development
can
be
studied
a s
n
emergence of nationalism.
The native intellectual in
rebuilding
t h e
nation
embarks
upon
t h e program
of
evolving a national literature; national culture/history.
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Nationalism, P I - a m e n a t z defines, i s primarily a
cultural phenomenon though it can a nd o f t e n does ,take
political
formf1(JTationalisn:
h e Nature
and
Evolution Of
an Idea 24).
It
is,
in
the
text
of
Gordimer,
reaction
of
t h
cultural
disadvantage, experienced
by the
colonized.
The
c onc e p t of culture in t h
present context takes
a
dialectical significance
Raymond
Williams
in
his study
on the meaning
and origin
of culture, points
to t h e
influence
of t r m s like 'industry,'
'democracy,'
and
class1
on our present definition of culture. In the
study of national
culture
that
Gordimer visualizes
in
the
social
future
of South Africa, a clear
understanding
of
the
term
culture
would
be
relevant.
The very
s p i r i t of
t h nation
can be the
latent
factor
of national
culture.
In state
legally segregated
and suppressed, the s p i r i t
of t h e
nation
as
different
from the dominant
culture
was
to
be identified.
This
she
does
as
t h e preliminary
policy of deconstructing the colonial
culture.
Gordimer
abhors
t h e
calcified nature of t h e slave society, which
was
not equalc.
Williams affirms
the ne essity of
equality
in
t h e
o r g a n i c
and natural
development
of
the
culture
of nation because the inequalities of many
kinds
which still
d i v i d e
our community make effective
communication
difficult or impossible (Culture andl
Society,
316). This prevents a common u l t u r e from
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developing. What could be signification of common
culture?
According to Williams, we
shall o t
survive
without
i t
ordimer's
perception
on
t h
future
of
South
Africa, echoes this 'common
culture.
It
does
n o t
require equality of material
aspects
as
the communist
dogma envisages
rather,
t prevails on
claim
to
'equality
of opportunity.' To identify
the
cultural
nexus
of a
transitional society
can be
problematic. Often
it
gets associated
with
one
or
the other of the
major
forces
that
brings
in
the transition. In South Africa t h e
cultural backdrop
of
the
varied
clans or
tribes, and the
European advent that resulted
in the
present
culture of
the
society
have to be recognized and accepted.
Unlike
those
who blindly decry
the
white experience which lasted
f o r
more than three
centuries,
Gordimer
is realistic
nough to
incorporate
t h e synthetic or
at
times
syncrenitic nature of social interactions. n d that has
made her promote
conditions
for
common culture
where
everyone
is offered an
equal
opportunity. While
de constructing t h e colonial myth of
European
supremacy
and illuminating the inhuman
aspec t s
of
it
Gordimer
reconstructs the society without the 'guilt or t h e
privileges of the white sinsf E ,
2 .
Gordimer
is
in
fact rationalizing t h e cultural
situation without
'self
pity for t h whites
or
sentiment about t h e
blacks (33).
In her essay Where
Do Whites
Fit In?,
t h
passive role
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of the
white
man in the future society s explained.
Gordimex calls on t h e
Whites
to
forget the
old
impulses
to
leadership,
and
temptation
to
g i v e
advice
backed
by
experiences and
the
culture of Western
civilizationf (35).
Here she
is
actually
replacing
the
va lue - sys tem of the colonial legacy with regional or
l o ca l
one. The new society has overthrown
the
authority
of a European centre. In her address to the white
community
s h e
further
explains
the tendency
to
\ b e
boss
(or baa s
rather) is to be curbed even when t h e blacks
actually needed
it
from sympathetic, well-meaning hites
in the process
of
building t h e nation. Because according
to her ,
\\what
counts is
the need of Africa, to acquire
confidence
t h r o u g h
the experience of picking itself up,
dusting
itself down, and starting a l l over again in the
path of cultural growth. Thus,
hites are
to
trust t h
black
masses and to move towards more c t i v e
conception
of
human beings and
relationships, i s
in fact
to realize a new freedom (Cul-re nd Society, 335).
he
human liberalist that s h e
has
l w y s
been, Gordimer
w nts
this freedom
for all, in
her
society
In t h e words
of Raymond Williams, such free society,
would
experience
a
cogn te
s h i f t
when we
think
aga i n about
hum n
growth, i t s hum n tending in spirit other than that
of the long dominative
modet'[335).
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36/37
o r d i m e r t h u s deconstructs
th
colonial m y t
from
the inside and
r b i t r t e s new hybridized nationalism
t h e
may
be
neither
the
most
representative
nor
the
most
fair b u t it s very
rootl ssn ss
brilliantly articulates
t h e emotion l
life of
decolonizationfs
various
political
contestants
Postcolonial Studies
Reader, 175 .
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8/11/2019 Deconstruction of the Colonial Myth
37/37
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cited
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Deepika.
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What s
Post
C o l ~ n i a l i s r n ? ~
riel,
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1995).
Bill
Ashcroft,
Gareth
Griffith and Helen Tiffin,
ed.
P o s t Colonial S tud i e s R e aW . London and
Hew York:
Routledge, 1995.
Bill
Ashcraft, Gareth
Griffith
and
Helen Tiffin, ed. he
ire
Writes Back
Theory-
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C o l d a l
Literature.
London: Routledge,
1989.
a g m a r Barnaou.
Nadine
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Dark
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World
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terature
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Massachusetts P, 1983.
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onwealth A t e r w .
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Heinernann, 1965.
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Jean-Paul.
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