LITR / CRCL 5734:
Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
Sample Student Final Exam 2003
Lisa C. James
LITR 5734
July 1, 2003
“Paradise Lost”: Analysis of a Colonial and Postcolonial Biblical Imagery
Biblical themes are not uncommon in literature. In many ways, the Bible is the ultimate text in terms of allusion and can be described as being a universal text, which a majority of the world is familiar with. Colonial and Postcolonial literature, usually written from the experience of a Christian worldview, more often than not, employ Biblical themes creating a sense of tension between “good” and “evil” and the idea of the corrupt and uncorrupt. The Garden of Eden, the biblical paradise God gave mankind, is a recurring theme. Adam and Eve, the first humans in the world, broke God’s laws and were banished from Eden. Disobeying God’s laws through sin or corruption leads to exile from paradise. Exile, of course, is a forced or voluntary absence from one’s home or country. It is distinguished from immigration in that one longs to return to their home and has hopes of doing so. The exiles of paradise long to return.
In Colonial and Postcolonial literature, the idea of paradise tends to shift. In Colonial literature, paradise is untouched land. It is land that has not been colonized and, as such, remains undiscovered. Inhabitants of the land are usually considered “innocent” and child-like, i.e. without sin. In Postcolonial literature, paradise is the land that has been left behind either physically but is more represented by a state of mind. In addition, Postcolonial writers, just as Colonial writers, tend to view colonized lands as a sort of lost paradise that disappeared through colonization. However, Postcolonial writers have an agenda of correcting colonial history. The texts to be examined in this analysis are E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Arundhati Roy’s A God of Small Things, and Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy.
In most Colonial literature, the idea paradise tends to shift. The protagonist visualizes the new land as an idyllic paradise only to be disappointed once he gets there. Paradise then becomes the home he left behind. We see this idea in A Passage to India. The newcomers to India, namely Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore, picture India as exotic and full of answers. Miss Quested is disappointed when she is shown British bungalows and wants to see the “real India” which is merely her idea of India. “She would see India always as a frieze and never as a spirit…”(47). The British who have been in India longer realize that they are far from paradise, which is no longer the notion of India but the England they have left behind. Mindi Swenson, in her dialogue presentation, says the British in Passage to India “separate themselves so completely.” The British realize their state of exile and seek to recreate England in India. When the club members hear the Anthem of the Army of Occupation, it “reminded every member that he or she was British and in exile” (26). They build bungalows with the architecture of England and create social events just like the ones they had at home. “India isn’t home,” is an idea that has been passed on to younger officials as if that alone would keep them connected to England or, rather, the idea of England. As exiles, they long to return to England not realizing that the England they left is no longer the same and they may have blinded themselves to it’s faults as a result of separation.
In Robinson Crusoe, also a Colonial text, we again see the idea of paradise shift from undiscovered lands to England. However, Crusoe seems to literally create paradise. Crusoe lands in an island paradise but recreates the paradise of England. Andrea Winter, in her 2001 dialogue, discusses Jamaica Kincaid’s idea that the English build England wherever they go. Previously, we had seen this idea in A Passage to India. In Robinson Crusoe, we see that Crusoe has disobeyed his father’s wishes and has banished himself from home. He sees that his sins against his “Father” has, in turn, kept him “divided from Mankind, a Solitaire, one banish’d from Humane Society”(49). While he can be seen as “Adam” in the garden of the island, he makes himself more like God and Friday becomes Adam. He becomes the “creator” of his own personal England complete with provisions and a man-servant. He, like God, and establishes his dominion over all the creatures of the island and names Friday and clothes him. He looks around with pleasure and says, “to think that all this was all my own, that I was King and Lord of this Country indefeasibly, and has a Right of Possession; and if I could convey it, I might have it in Inheritance, as completealy as any Lord of a Mannor in England” (73).
In Postcolonial literature, we see that paradise no longer needs to be a land or a nation but that is can also be a state of mind. There are so many images of exile in paradise in A God of Small Things, that it is difficult to analyze all of them satisfactorily. The character of Ammu seems the most obvious image. Ammu because she breaks the Love laws, the “laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.” (33). However, her banishment is not necessarily physical but societal. It almost seems as she was an exile thrice for the three sins she had committed: one, she married outside of her community, two, she got divorced, and three, she loved a Paravan. Her banishment did not require her to physically leave but she was regarded as not being there; not having the rights and privileges of those that lived in paradise. Though she lives in Ayemenem, her paradise was that which she herself created and shared with Velutha. However, their paradise was a “sin” in a larger paradise. In this case, society is God. Kerala can also be seen as a lost paradise corrupted by foreign popular media, political systems, and education. Finally, another interesting metaphor is Paradise Pickles. Like the society in the text, it wants to preserve traditions and prevent leaking. However, there was always leaking and Mammachi wondered “whether she would ever master the art of perfect preservation” (167). Ammu could never be bottled and leaked out of a “Paradise” jar.
In Lucy, we see this idea of paradise as a mental state repeated. It is difficult to understand what Lucy considers paradise. She never seems to be truly happy in either her island home or in the United States. She says that when she was in home the idea of the United States “had been a comfort…” (7). However, in the United States she finds that she “did not even have this to look forward to…”(7). While she did leave home for a better life in the United States, her exile seems more internal. Her mother tells her that she was named after Lucifer, the fallen angel who turned against God. Lucy sees her mother as God and turning away from her mother is just what is expected of her. It was as if she suddenly could explain her unhappiness to herself, “I went from feeling burdened and old and tired to feeling light, new, and clean. I was transformed from failure to triumph. It was the moment I knew who I was” (152). In banishing herself, she was searching for an identity, any identity. At that moment she realizes that she has to create her own paradise within herself because she has learned that happiness is not where you are but knowing who you are.
In examining Lucy, one is confronted with the idea of paradise not existing, of paradise not being real. What if paradise never existed? What would be an exile’s resolution? In Derek Walcott’s poems we see the angst of an internal struggle that appears to have no hope of resolution. Born into a world that is a product of colonial history and the as a product of ethnic genealogies that seem to be in eternal conflict, Walcott comes to term with his state as a hybrid postcolonial subject through his poetry. In his poem, “Exile”, we see a student from India in England, “Never to go home again,/ for this was home” (100). Home, here, could be read as the equivalent of paradise. Walcott seems to question the idea that home is physical place where you are from. Home is a state of mind for the exile. The exile never seems to be at home anywhere and home becomes a notion the exile carries around with him. The poem goes on to say that student longs “for [his] lost India” (102). While away from India, India has changed and it no longer exists as it did for the exile. As a hybrid exile, tangled in various notions of home both in his genealogies and in his physical space, Walcott appears as forever lost, forever searching for a home that doesn’t exist. Resolution appears to be the creation of an internal “home” or “paradise.”
There are certain factors to consider in the biblical themes and imagery used in Postcolonial works such as Lucy , The God of Small Things, and Walcott’s poems. For the most part, most Postcolonial writers come from a Christian background and thus, it does not come as a surprise that biblical themes are used. However, the use of biblical themes seem to be conscious and not simply the impact of western thought in literature. If Postcolonial writing, as stated in the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, “is the slow, painful, and highly complex means of fighting ones way into European history,” than is it not possible that Postcolonial writers, in particular, use Biblical imagery for the very reason that they are a product of colonization and as a conscious protest by “using their own medicine”, so to speak. It is a way of correcting and rewriting the indigenous voices in Colonial history.
In conclusion, while the idea of the loss of paradise is found in both Colonial and Postcolonial literature, it plays a dual role in Postcolonial literature by not only as an important aspect of the narrative but also by emphasizing the history and the voices lost during the colonial process. Paradise has become lost in the Postcolonial world and in modernity, and one can only imagine it as it was.
Final Paper Log
7:55am-- Began Paper
8:35am-- Break
8:50am-- Paper
10:30am-- Break
10:45am-- Paper
12:05pm-- Paper Complete.