The Flag On The Island Essay

The nature of the pattern of a travelogue is determined by the personality of the writer. V.S. Naipaul is a zealous traveller, like Hakluyt, Marco Polo, Darwin, Defoe and so many other sailors and sojourners; he has travelled far and wide. His travel writing exhibits various aspects in the light of history, ethnography, sociology, aggression, concern for weak, sympathy for sufferers and his grand evaluation of men, manners, objects and development of a country. He has been one of the greatest Caribbean writers of Indian origin, writing in English. As a novelist he is an international figure and exceptional.

Nostalgia can mean a deep and sometimes painful longing for the (personal) past, and is considered as a common experience. However, nostalgia is often considered as “a distorted memory of the past that is morally questionable” (Walder 939). This idea of nostalgia is especially present in colonial history. As colonialism is nowadays not considered as an aspect of history to be proud of, longing for that past is socially no longer acceptable. Most of the novels and works now read and analyzed in (post-) colonial studies will emphasize the inequality, the racism and the dreadful aftermath of colonialism.

proach. The motivation, absorbed and calendar that complete such endeavor usually end in breadth of conflict, that ends up in the crisis of literary, amusing and political illustration. As Simon Featherstone credibility out, “In column corruption it [the crisis] could be a accurate account that touches aloft the acute problems with analogy and aloft the bread-and-butter and abstract administration of assembly and archetype of narratives of ‘other’ cultures. during this paper, i 'm circuitous with two ambit of adherent analogy in abstract that I in actuality accept disconnected in two sections. aural the antecedent breadth I in actuality accept approved to allowance the ascendant discourses of Adherent problems and its analogy in literature. aural the additional breadth my affair is to assay Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger aural the spectrum of those discourses i.e. about ascendancy and ability apply in adherent discourses. axial postcolonial discourses, I altercate that these two problems are commutual aural the analogy of bordering and analyze the choir of unhearable in reconfiguring of adherent theorization. The adherent theorisation is directed to the blow aloft the amount problems with cultural and bread-and-butter ability and accordingly the analogy of bordering that are at centre aural the adroit of conduct itself. The angle of analogy of postcolonial adherent relies on altercation that abstruse focus will be confused from hegemonic to interact. the a lot of activity of

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul‘s Mimic Men attempts to give an obvious glimpse and wide examination of the existential escape of his protagonist, Ralph Singh, who catches up with his surroundings in order to build a new postcolonial sense of self and identity forming. Naipaul plays a significant role in portraying the hero’s continual as well as exiled life from the perspective of his own cultural displacements to assure Ralph Singh’s sense of belonging. In a skeptical view, The Mimic Men looks at a recently freed nation in the Caribbean, the island of Isabella who was not able to experience the real independence. This research aims to investigate the novel in the period of cultural conflict and eventually the quest for the main character’s true identity in a post-colonial era which denies Ralph Singh’s sense of identity and belonging.

The novel shows the conflict between the urge of the natives for self-government and the British Raj. Passage between the two races is certainly vulnerable while conflict soars high. Though Forster does not represent some major political incidents that took place between the suppression of the so-called ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 and the massacre of civilians at Amritasar in 1919, he has discovered almost all the improbabilities of the relationship between the colonizers and the

Discourse is related with power. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They constitute the nature of the body, unconscious and conscious mind and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern. We can thus refer colonial discourses as a system of producing knowledge about the relationship between the colonizer, colonized and the colonizing process through power, language and other such discursive practices. The perceptions of the colonists and the colonized are often encoded in colonial discourses and in other art forms. Postcolonial studies therefore inevitably engage in a critical scrutiny of such discourses and art forms emanating from colonial relationships. Postcolonial discourses enable interpreters to expose colonial realty and help to focus upon the imperializing practices involved in the creation of a

The effects of colonialism are ingrained into every facet of society in Trinidad. The novel The Dragon Can’t Dance written by Earl Lovelace, has many aspects of a postcolonial society, from the way people act on a day to day basis to the traditions upheld during Carnival. There is enough evidence to argue that the town and all its residents are experiencing postcolonialism, or the aftermath of colonial rule. Three central time frames in the novel will support this: before Carnival, during and after Carnival, and after Aldrick’s six year term in prison. These scenes in the novel depict this theme and demonstrate the postcolonial values that still dominate Calvary Hill. Postcolonialism also affects Pariag and is demonstrated by how he is treated by his neighbors. Finally we will deconstruct the idea of the “Carnival” and figure out the relationship of this to the Postcolonial Theory and how this is a reflection of colonial rule.

Collins points out that Fanon reminds us that ‘Skin is not just assumed like mask; it is God-given even if its meanings are social, discursive. What skin and masks have in common is that they mark the interface between self and the world: they are the border’. For Bhabha, however, this image evokes an ambivalence that can be read not just as marking the trauma of the colonial subject but also characterising the workings of colonial authority, he suggests, undermines itself by not being able to replicate its own self perfectly. In one of his best essays, ‘Signs Taken for Wonders’ he discusses the transmission of the Bible in colonial India, and the way in which the book is hybridised in the process of being communicated to the natives. He concludes that ‘the colonial presence is always ambivalent, split between appearances as original and authoritative and its articulation as repetition and reference”. In a seminal essay “Notes on the Postcolonial”published in Postcolonial Theory: A Reader(1996:326) Ella Shohat argues that “hybridity has diverse modalities which encompasses: assimilation, internalized rejection, political co-optation, social conformism, cultural mimicry, and creative transcendence”. What is more, “hybridisation takes many forms these include cultural, political, and linguistic. Pidgin and Creole are linguistic

Since the identity is not a stable and fixed notion as Hall confirms ―Identity emerges as a kind of unsettled space or an unresolved question in that space, between a number of intersecting discourses and the impact of colonial legacy was multi dimensional besides there was a different consequences of colonialism in different locations, the issue of identity appeared in different shapes and forms. Collective and individual identities also differ physically and psychologically. The resistance of decolonization process took various outlines due to countries, societies and individuals. Therefore, identity is not simply imposed. It is also chosen, and actively used, albeit within particular social contexts and constraints. Against dominant representations of others there is resistance. Within structures of dominance, there is agency.

1) I chose the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand because of it has great significance. New Zealand declared its independency from the United Kingdom on the 28th of October 1835 in Waitangi. It was James Busby, with the help of missionary Henry Williams and William Colenso, who then prepared a statement to give the northern Maori chiefs to sign after there were rumours that the United States or France were thinking of claiming New Zealand as their own. The statement’s purpose was to recognise the independency and sovereignty of the New Zealand Maori tribes. The sketch statement that was signed was written in Maori, but another English translation was prepared as well.

V. S. Naipaul embodies different cultures that are acquired from a variety of places. The author believes in the idea of expanding one’s identity through movement from one place to another. Stagnant cultures, especially tribal societies, “prevents intellectual growth, prevents a gift of self-analysis and self-assessment” (Interview). On the other hand, Walcott does not care for global expansion when it comes to social advancement. Instead, the crisscrossing of various cultures in one local place is the reason for society’s success. Although V. S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott are men of the same generation and of the same island, these differences in their sociocultural perspectives create a division of ideas and outlooks. Naipaul believes

Some point out that the political nations are based more on ‘civic’ nationalism, as opposed to the ‘ethnic’ nationalism characteristic of the cultural nations. These observations are based on two popular theories of nationalism.Primordialists’ approach the extent to which culture exists as a given resource for the constitution of nationsand instrumentalist’ approach, the extent to which culture has to be invented by nationalist elites. The primordialist approach, evident in the early work of Geertz, Shils and in the socio-biological theory of Van den Berghe, argues that ethnic and cultural attachments are pre-givens, or at least assumed givens, and appear ‘natural’ to members of a group. As against this, the instrumentalist approach, evidenced to varying degrees in the works of Brass, Hobsbawm and Nairn, argues that ethnic attachments are often invented and manipulated by elites to construct the nation as a privileged source of a group’s loyalty. I’m of the view that all national identities are

This paper tries to understand how a national narrative is construed in a post war society through landscapes of memory and oblivion. The analysis interrogates claims of past, present and future that fashion the landscape and the resulting ambivalences in interpreting identities. RomeshGunasekara’s short story collection Noontide Toll interweaves the story of the war distraught island through the narrative of Vasantha – ‘the van man’. Stories concerning ‘yearnings of teenagers to the heartache of soldiers’ (Gunasekara 235) are articulated by the fifty six year old Sinhalese(from Colombo), who had retired from the Coconut Corporation. The story of the dystopian society unravels through the predicament of the natives/ settlers and anxieties of the tourist and immigrants who frequent war zones, tourist spots and relics (signifying the past).

The Caribbean presents an unrealistic facade to outsiders; this region is the vacation hot spot with many beautiful tropical islands, perpetual sun, and clear waters – a place to rid yourself of all worries, and unwind. But there are many underlying issues in this region that most people are unaware of. In The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, written by Stewart Brown and John Wickham, there are many depictions of the difficulties that people experience in the Caribbean. A common theme amongst many of these short stories is identity. In postcolonial societies, for example, the articulation of identity frequently becomes an upsetting process because of a historical,

As Peter Barry observes in his Beginning Theory, postcolonial criticism emerged as a distinct category only in the 1990s. It has gained prominence through the influential books like In Other Worlds (Gayatri Spivak, 1987), the Empire Writes Back (Bill Ashcroft, 1989), Nation and Narration (Homi Bhabha, 1990) and Culture and Imperialism (Edward Said, 1993). A recurring feature of postcolonial writing is the attempt to identify the differential cultural identity. As oppositional discourse, postcolonial literature seeks to undermine the European discursive tradition that has promoted the entire process of imperialization. The postcolonial theory challenges system of conceptualizations and representation that justify and help maintain imperialist power during and after the age of colonization. As a means to achieve this end, the postcolonial theory seeks to establish a differential identity in an impulse to decolonize the mind. It challenges and resists the Western cultural hegemony. Over the last few decades postcolonial theory has evolved through different stages to encompass a variety of