Final Theory
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Transcript of Final Theory
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Table of Content
Table of Content ……………………………………………………..………………...i
Chapter I Introduction
1.1. Introduction to Poscolonial Theory ……………………..………………...2
Chapter II Discussion
2.1. Postcolonialism Theory …………………………….…………………….4
2.2. Edward Said…………………………………….………………………...5
2.3. Gayatri Spivak ……………….……………………….…………………..7
2.4. Sam Selvon ………………………………………….…………………...8
2.5. Aime Cesaire ………………………………………..……………………8
2.6. Frantz Fanon ……………………………………….…………………….9
2.7. Homi K. Bhabha ………………………………….……………………..10
Chapter III Conclusion
3.1. Conclusion ……………………………………….……………………...12
References …………………………………………………………………………...13
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Chapter I
Introduction
1.1. Introduction to Poscolonial Theory
Literary criticism is a term that used for any discourse about literature. It is the
study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism, also
known today as literary theory, can include book reviews as well as theoretical
discussion. Even though most of literary criticism available today was produced in the
20th century, literary criticism has a long history. It was began in 4th century BC and
continue to develop until now.
Nowadays, many theories and approaches could be used in analyzing the
literary text. For instance, each of the theory has the specific focus and limitation
during the process of analyzing the text. One of the theories that usually use by the
reader and the literary students to analyzing literary text is postcolonial theory.
Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of a
group people to another (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006). It refers to the
practice by which a powerful country controls other countries. It means of a military,
economic, and cultural domination of one country to another country. Moreover,
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Colonialism aims to control and dominate the colonized country both mentally and
physically.
Postcolonial refers to the era after the colonial era ended. Colonized people's
life experienced very drastic and significant changes due to the occupation that lasted
for a very long time. Changes occur in all areas, ranging from economics, education,
language, culture, and the literary world. Along with these changes, writers and critics
emerged to examine the colonial era. Various literature works and critics on
colonization issues published and attracted the attention of the literary world.
Postcolonialism theory is an interesting critical concept since its attempts that
explains the development, conditions, and consequences of the experience of
colonialism. Postcolonial criticism usually involves the analysis of literary texts
produced in countries and cultures that have experienced being under the control of
colonial powers in the past. It refers to the analysis of texts written about colonized
places by writers who have experiences about the colonizing culture.
The purpose of this study is to present further explanation deals with the
theory of Postcolonial Criticism. Furthermore, this paper presents some important
terms and key ideas of postcolonial criticism, which usually arise in postcolonial text.
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Chapter II
Discussion
2.1. Introduction to Postcolonialism Theory
Colonization is an era in which the occurrence of imperialism. The term
imperialism means the action of a country to extend its control or the authority over
other countries or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial or through
indirect methods of exerting control on the other countries. The term is also used to
describe the action of a country to maintain its colonies and dominance over distant
lands. So far, imperialism might be used to refer to an intellectual position, it would
imply the belief that the acquisition and maintenance of empires is a positive good,
. Postcolonialism is a critical concept characterized by attempts to explain the
development, conditions, and consequences of the experience of imperialism. The
imperialism raises many issues. It creates great suffer physically and psychologically,
especially in the colonized people. Linda L. Revie (2003) qualifies four major
subjects included in Postcolonialism criticism; Social and cultural change or erosion,
misuse of power and exploitation, colonial abandonment and alienation, and use of
English language. Guerin (2005, 303) said:
“Postcolonialism refrers to a historical phase undergone by Third World countries after the decline of colonialism: for example, when countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean separated from the European empires and were left to rebuild themselves.”
Based on the quotation above can be concluded that the result of this imperialism was
the creation of a dividing wall between the West or European (colonizers) and East or
occupied (colonized).
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2.2. Edward Said
The first important term that has to be noticed in the Postcolonial theory and
approaches is ‘Eurocentric’. Said (in Guerin, 2005) exposes Eurocentric in
postcolonial as the ideology which is take the Europe as the central or prime model of
cultures. In this case, the colonizer manipulates the colonized mind set and implants
that Europe is the best culture and should serve as a model for other cultures. All
things must be in accordance with the values, norms, and habits of Europeans.
Eurocentricesm separate countries and nation into four different terms. They are; First
World includes Britain, Europe, and the United States. The second term is Second
World includes White populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and southern
Africa; former Soviet bloc. The next one is Third World includes Developing nations
such as India, Africa, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia, and the last
one is Fourth World includes indigenous populations subjugated by white settlers and
governed by the majority culture which surrounds them: Native Americans and
aboriginal Australians.
Edward Said used the term ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ to describe the invaders
and the occupied people. The term ‘Orient’ refers to the colonized, and the term
‘Occident’ refers to the colonizer. He insists the Orient is created by the Occident.
The Orient is viewed with prejudice and racism. They are backward and unaware of
their own history and culture. The West has created a culture, history, and future
promise for them. They made such a discourse about the East. The Western believes
that the East is strange, wild, uncivilized, and subservient.
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Edward said explained that the Occident describes the Orient by using four
terms. Firstly, the term Orient is regarded as ‘timeless’. The Orient has no any
concept of history. Secondly, the Orient is considered as ‘strange’. It means that they
are different, odd, and obviously contras to the Occident. Then, the Occident called
the Orient as ‘feminine’ means submissive, and the Occident itself is ‘masculine’
means active and dominant. The last one is the Occident regarded the Orient as
‘degenerate’. It means the Orient is lazy, weak, bad work ethic, criminals, and
immoral.
In the colonization process, the colonizer’s invasion focused on four major
sections. The first sectionis the power political. The power political refers to the
colonial or imperial establishment. Political power refers to the colonizer’s effort to
establish the colonization and to maintain it. The second section is the power
intellectual. The colonizer keep the colonized away of knowledge, education, or any
modern science. The colonizer is the only people who may achieve higher level of
education and knowledge. The third section is the power cultural. The colonizer a
asserted a perception that their culture is canonical, valuable, and high flavor. The last
section is the power moral. The colonizer is the one who responsible to decide what
things are can do and things that cannot do, while the colonizer was just follows the
rules of moral that have been made.
Those four dominant sections by Said lead to Barry’s explanation about how
the colonized responds to the colonization. Barry (2005: 196) asserts three kinds of
colonized responds to the colonizer’s culture, they are adopt, adapt, and adept. The
first one is adopt. It is the condition, the colonizer success to implant the new
stereotype in colonized mind-set; the colonized accept the colonizer models without
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questions. Therefore, the colonized try to imitate all things related to the colonizer, the
attitude, values and norm. The second one is adapt. It is the condition that the
colonized get used to the colonizer models. The colonized begin to consider the
positive and negative effect of the colonizer models. They just applied and take the
colonizer culture that gives positive contribution to their life and leave all the West
negative culture. The last one is adept. It means the colonized maintain their own
culture and the colonized totally refused the west culture.
2.3. Gayatri Spivak
Edward Said is not the only one who gives big contributions to the
development of Postcolonial theory. Similar to Said’s opinion of Orient, Spivak uses
different terminology to explain the Western way to identify the East. She used the
term 'Subaltern' to describe the views of the West to the East. In general, subaltern
means a sense refers to marginalized groups and the lower classes. Spivak use
subaltern to described the East as uncivilized, dominated, and submissive. She added
subaltern means everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism.
However, Spivak tend to examine the effects of male domination to female in
Postcolonialism. She (in Guerin, 2005:305) said:
“…subaltern studies reveal how female subjects are silenced by the dialogue between the male-dominated West and the male-dominated East, offering little hope for subaltern woman’s voice to rise up amidst the global social institutions that oppress her.”
Spivak insist that in the colonial-experienced countries, women are considered as
submissive and easy to dominate. Ironically, the domination applied by both colonizer
male and colonized male.
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2.4. Sam Selvon
Other important figure in Postcolonialism is Sam Selvon who focused on the
process of colonization. He used the term ‘Diaspora’ and ‘Internalizing’ and.
Diaspora is an effort to bring a group of people from his homeland to a completely
new place to them. This is caused by two things: first, because their homeland is
controlled by the colonizer and they were considered no longer useful there. Second,
because the colonizer require additional workers to build the other colonized
territories. Based on the second point above, can be assumed that the diaspora can
also lead to slavery where people are forced to work for the colonizer without a
worthwhile benefit.
In the colonization context, internalizing means the process of implanting to
the colonized mind that the intension of colonization is create a better life for the
colonized as well as to the colonizer (Sam Selvon, 2006). It means that the West try to
make such ideology about the standard of West is the best for life. In the process of
colonialism, the colonizers also trying to maintain the colonized thought that the
colonizer is better than they are. The colonizers implants this idea in every aspects of
life from the colonized, such as political, educational, belief, moral, intellectual,
economical and cultural.
2.5. Aime Cesaire
Similar to Said’s Orient and Spivak’s Subaltern, Cesaire describe the
colonized by using the term submissive and permissive which both of them created by
the colonizer. Submissive refers the colonized. It means means colonized only group
of people that cannot do anything and can be constructeded easily. Based on
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Eurocentrism theory, which states that the west as a model, colonizer believes that the
colonized will accept everything that was brought by the colonizer. The colonizers
saw the colonized as an animal, without rules, culture and humanity. In contrary,
permissive refers to the colonizer. It means the colonizer is the only one who can
make rules and control the colonizer life; they are the only decision maker. The
colonizer puts themselves in the position as the leader in the colonization territory.
As Salvon works, Aime Cesaire also examined the process of imperialism. He
focused to the colonizer way to dominate the colonized. Aime Cesaire in his theory
used the term that calls ‘Hypocracy’ (Oxford Journal, 2010). The imperialism
implants its models through the religious approach. The domination achieved throught
the Christian missionary movement. Colonization through religious activities tend to
be more effective than by physical. Through religious, the process of hegemony and
brain washing are easier to do because for most people religion is considered as
something sacred, tend to teach a good thing. The colonizer gain the sympathy the
colonized easily of by using the missionary way. However, associating religious for
the purpose of occupation caused the distortion of religious doctrine itself. The
concept of hypocracy itself attempts to see anomalies and irregularities in the
missionary.
2.6. Frantz Fanon
The notion of imperialism, Eurocentric, and the gap between West and East
are rejected by the Postcolonialism. Frantz Fanon (in Barry, 2002: 193) uses the term
‘cultural resistance’ in his book The Wretched of the Earth to describe the rejection of
Western domination to the East. He argued that the first step to gain their dignity and
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maintain their identity is to reclaim their own past. The advanced life in the West
cannot be separated from the role of the East. Trace back to the West imperialism
history, can be seen that the East is the people who worked hard to build and construct
the Western world and gave a new color on Western culture such as music, art, and
various traditions. The other step is to erode the colonizer ideology.
In addition, Fanon also uses Foucault's idea ‘Knowledge Is Power’ (Lodge,
2000: 173) as the effort of colonized to gain their dignity and maintain their identity.
Education and knowledge is one thing that became crucial gap between east and west
for such a long period. By advancing education, improving quality of knowledge, the
colonized can voice their equality with the colonizer.
2.7. Homi K. Bhabha
Homi K. Bhabha is another expert in the Postcolonial theory who examines
the effect of colonialism to the colonized people. The first term of Bhabha is
‘mimicry’. Mimicry means the colonized try to emulate and apply the culture,
language, customs, and lifestyle of the colonizer. However, they cannot totally imitate
the colonizer. After all, their original culture, language, customs, and lifestyles remain
clearly visible.The second term is hybridity (Guerin, 2005:304-305).
Hybridity means the blending of two different cultures and create a new
culture. In this case, the colonizer do not represents their original culture nor the
colonizer culture. They created new culture that quiet different to the colonizer and
the colonizer culture. Language is one of the most noticeable examples of this
hibrydity. Talib (2002: 1005) said that some multilingual colonial-experienced
countries regard English as neutral language that can be used as channel of
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nationalistic anti-colonialism. However, they cannot use English fluently; their
English is still influenced by their mother tongue language. As the result, their create
new language called creole and pidgin.
The major impact of Bhabha’s theory (mimicry and hybridity) and Barry’s
theory (adopt, adapt, adept) are related to Freud’s theory of floating identity and
double identity (Barry, 2002:196-197). Generally, those are experienced by the
colonized. Floating identity means a condition where a person or group of people does
not represent any specific culture. They failed to become like the colonizer because
the colonizer refused and did not acknowledge their existence, but they also cannot
completely eliminate the existing west culture in themselves or back to the original
culture. Meanwhile, double identity refers to the condition that people represent both
colonizer and colonized culture.
Postcolonialism theory becomes an interesting and used widely due to the
impact of colonization itself is never ends, even until now. Furthermore, since it is
part of cultural studies, Postcolonial theory then can be associated, developed and
reviewed with other theories such as Feminism, Psychoanalysis, New Historicism,
Ecocriticism, Marxist and Capitalist.
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Chapter III
Conclusion
3.1. Conclusion
Each of the experts has their own specific focus during their analyzing through
the Postcolonial theory. Actually all those argument and opinion are related and
supporting each other. The connection is about the definitions, the process, the
respond, and the effects of colonization itself.
Postcolonial criticism analyze the literary texts produced in countries and
cultures that have experiences of imperialism or colonization. The readers have to
notice all the aspect that has already explains above are the crucial characteristic that.
Eurocentric, internalization, diaspora, colonizers, colonized, subaltern, hybridity,
mimicry, hybridity, hypocracy, adopt, adapt and adept, and cultural resistant are the
common theme found in the Postcolonial text. Those terms are the most important
aspects that must be analyzing in the Postcolonial criticism.
Actually, many critics gave a great contribution to Postcolonial theory.
However, figures discussed in the previous chapter are considered as most influential
figures who introduced most important key terms to Poscolonial theory. Postcolonial
theory, as part of cultural study, then can be associated, developed and reviewed with
other theories such as Feminism, Psychoanalysis, New Historicism, Ecocriticism,
Marxist and Capitalist.
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References
Barry, Peter. 2002. Beginning Theory An introduction to literary and cultural theory: second edition. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York.
Bedford St. Martins. 2010. Critical approaches. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2010. http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_post.html.
Boeree , Dr. C. George. 2006. Personalities Theory. SIGMUND FREUD 1856 –
1939. Retrieved on January 2nd, 2010.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html
Cesaire, Aime. 2009. BAOAB SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF NEW WRITING. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2010. http://www.baobabjournal.co.za/search/node/Aime+Cesaire
Guerin, Wilfred L. 2005. A Hand Book Of Critical Approaches To Literature: Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, New York.
Lodge, David and Nigel Wood. 2000. MODERN Criticism and Theory. Longman, Singapore.
Oxfor Journal. 2010. Beyond Postcolonial Césaire: Reading Cahier d'un retour au pays natal Historically1. Retrieved on November 27th, 2010. http://fmls.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/3/258.full
Revie, Linda L. 2003. The Niagara Companion: Explorers, Artists and Writers at the Falls, from Discovery through the Twentieth Century. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 95. http://books.google.com/books?id=X8J3zgXVq_MC&dq=%22anti+conquest+narrative%22.
Selvon , Sam. 2006. Black Diaspora Artists in Britain: Three 'Moments' in Post-war History,History Workshop Journal - Issue 61, Spring. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2010. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/history_workshop_journal/v061/61.1hall.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. Colonialism. Retrived on November 27th, 2010. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/
Talib, Ismail S. 2002. The Language of Postcolonial Literatures an Introduction.
Routledge, New York.
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