LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Sample Student Final Exam 2005

Robert D. Ausmus

December 11, 2005

Essay One—Why Can’t We Just Get Along?

     I was living in Southern California when several Los Angeles police officers mercilessly beat Rodney King prior to subduing him.  In a press conference following the beating, Mr. King asked, “Why can’t we just get along?”  At the time, I thought his question was naïve, and I made fun of him.  Unfortunately his words went unheeded, and many people subsequently died in riots spurred by racial tension.  Years later, however, I realized the weight of Mr. King’s question.  While studying pivotal texts in dialogue with each other throughout Literature 5734, I re-discovered that converging nations, cultures, and individuals endured horrendous experiences like people in my generation have.  These people simply could not get along.

     An example from the course that coincides with the incident with Mr. King exists in the Partition of India.  Prior to taking this course, I had heard nothing of India’s Partition.  To be honest, my knowledge of non-Western geo-political issues is severely lacking.  So, when we read A Passage to India and Train to Pakistan, I became somewhat informed regarding this issue.  I really appreciated Anuruddha Ellakkala’s web-review on the Partition because I feel he added a point of view that I could hardly achieve having never lived in a culture where these issues are so prevalent.  What impressed me the most about his presentation had to do with the amount of land and people that were affected by this incident.  Anuruddha’s presentation—and the fact that he gave it—helped me better understand the relevance of the Partition and the meaning it carries within the texts we read.  In this instance, I felt the web-review was particularly beneficial.  Although I like the idea of students making presentations, there were some instances when I felt that too many student presentations were given.  That was the exception rather than the rule though.  In my teaching, I will offer opportunities for students to give presentations.

     An example from one of the texts illustrates the difficulty people encounter while attempting to get along with each other.  My example comes from the last few pages of E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India.  Following the numerous experiences Aziz and Fielding had, Aziz exclaimed, “India shall be a nation!  No foreigners of any sort!  Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall be one!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah for India!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!” (Forster 361).  Aziz acknowledged that various groups within India hated each other, but they were united in their disdain for British domination.  While Aziz railed upon Fielding, Aziz said, “you and I shall be friends” (Forster 362).  Fielding’s response was curious.  He said, “Why can’t we be friends now?…It’s what I want.  It’s what you want.” (Forster 362).  The tragedy of this dialogue has to do with the fact that “the horses didn’t want it, they said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not yet,’ and the sky said, ‘No, not there.’” (Forster 362).  Although these men—these cultures or nations—may have wanted to be friends, the time was not right for it.  Like Mr. King and his plea for Caucasians and African Americans to get along, the time was not right for it.

     I read many of the midterms and final exams from previous semesters, and I think April Davis wrote some very interesting things about this topic in her 2003 final exam.  She wrote, “Aziz’s blind hatred of the English lead him to betray his friend Mrs. Moore by ill treating her grandson.  Furthermore, Aziz’s rejection of Mr. Fielding shows the depths of his resentment of a race.  Sadly, Aziz is limited by his own narrow mindedness.”  Ms. Davis was correct.  It was a shame that Aziz and Fielding were not able to work things out.  Their failure as individuals—which represents the failure of nations or cultures—adds a tragic element to A Passage to India.  Without this tragic element, the novel would not have been as meaningful or powerful to people of my generation.

     I have learned many other things this semester as well.  Although I have previously taken courses that covered colonial and post-colonial texts, I had not studied these topics with as much vigor or direction as we have in Literature 5734.  I found reading these texts in dialogue with each other very beneficial.  Using this particular method provides readers an opportunity to make an informed decision based upon evaluating both sides of an issue.  In my teaching, I will use this method each time the occasion presents itself.

     I really liked the variety of texts we read throughout the course.  Reading about Africa, India and Pakistan, the Caribbean Islands, and the United States offered a variety of cultures and experiences to consider, but I think the course can benefit by eliminating one of the texts.  In our case, I would have eliminated Jasmine.  I totally understand the point of reading Jasmine and using that text as an example of the third wave of colonialism, or post-post-colonialism, but I would rather have read Robinson Crusoe in dialogue with Lucy than three texts on India’s plight.  In either case, the poetry of Derek Walcott was extremely profitable as a supplemental primary text.  His insight proves invaluable to the course objectives, and the course would have lacked without his contributions.

     All in all, I thought this course was very beneficial, and I enjoyed it immensely.  An overarching theme arose time and time again for me, and that theme is the idea that people have difficulty understanding each another.  This lack of understanding contributes to their inability to get along, and the texts we read this semester illustrate that concept very well.  The subject matter of the course does not only deal with people in far away places or times long ago.  It deals with us now and in the present.  That is the real benefit of taking courses like this.

Robert D. Ausmus

December 11, 2005

Essay Two—Colonial Subservience

     Subservience is a by-product of colonialism.  Colonial powers use various methods to bring individuals, tribes, and nations under their rule.  This process usually begins with missionaries.  Missionaries are motivated to bring the gospel to heathens.  The next step is to introduce new commodities to the conquered.  Doing this enables the colonizers to gain power over the oppressed because the colonizers possess things the colonized need to make their lives more comfortable or secure.  In turn, the colonized provide—usually by force—things that make the colonizer’s lives more comfortable and secure.  As these things progress, cultures change, and colonizers gain more power or authority over the colonized.  It finally gets to the point that the colonized become domesticated.  Domestication in this sense means that the colonized cannot or will not revert to their previous ways of life without great hardship.  They, in essence, have been colonized.

     Examples of this process can be seen in the tribal societies in Southwestern Africa, the Indians of North America, and many other places throughout the world.  Literature 5734 introduces students to this problem, and it does so while examining the perspectives of the colonizers and the colonized.  Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Derek Walcott’s poem entitled Map of the New World illustrate varying aspects of the problem of subverting an individual or culture in an attempt to satisfy colonial aspirations.

     The first example comes from Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan.  During India’s Partition, the political makeup of the land became volatile following England’s withdrawal from the region.  Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs struggled to live and work together in peace.  This novel deals with a love affair between a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl in the village of Mano Majra.  Early in the novel, Singh describes a man by the name of Hukum Chand.  Although Chand is not a colonial figure, he is a magistrate with absolute authority in a region once dominated by colonial powers.  To the villagers of Mano Majra, there is little difference between Chand and the English because they are subservient to him as they were to the English.  Chand has a chauffer and personal servants, and his every need is attended to by those around him.  At one point in the novel, Chand is entertained by musicians and a young girl raised to become a prostitute.  Chand made advances upon the young girl, and she tried to resist them.  He did not care for her at all because she was there to please him.  Singh indicates that, “The magistrate was not particularly concerned with her reactions.  He had paid for all that” (30).  Chand was a man with absolute authority, and he did not care for those under his jurisdiction.  He used the villagers to his own end just like the English colonizers did.

     A more appropriate example of how a colonist imposed subservience upon the colonized exists in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.  Several years after Crusoe landed upon his island, he discovered a group of Indians on the beach participating in what he supposed was a devilish orgy of cannibalism.  It was a cannibalistic venture, but whether the Indians had any notion of occultism was entirely speculative at best.  In any case, Crusoe’s relationship with “his man Friday” is illustrative of European dominance over the indigenous people with whom they dealt with.  Friday was named by Crusoe.  He did not even have a choice what his name was.  He was named after a day of the week that was not even of his own reckoning of time.  He had to learn English.  He was clothed in Crusoe’s manner, he ate what Crusoe provided, his religion was repudiated by Crusoe so he had to convert to Christianity, and his way of life became Europeanized. 

     Another Literature 5734 student named Krisann wrote about this in her 2003 final exam.  She indicates that, “Robinson Crusoe takes to the sea on a slave gathering expedition, and though he is shipwrecked, he manages to make a slave of the first human he encounters on the deserted island.  In fact, upon meeting the man Crusoe would name Friday, Crusoe assumes him immediately as a slave.  Crusoe does save Friday’s life, but Crusoe unabashedly sees Friday’s gratitude as a submission to servitude.”  I think Krisann correctly characterizes Crusoe as an opportunistic colonist bent upon creating an imperialistic colony for himself and his new subject.  The rest of Robinson Crusoe proves to be a proto-novel that expounds upon Crusoe’s subversion of Friday.

     The final example of subservience comes from a poem by Derek Walcott entitled Map of the New World.  Walcott compares the Trojan War to European exploration and colonization of the New World.  This poem has little meaning without at least a rudimentary understanding of post-war conditions in general but specifically referring to the Trojan War.  The beatings, the rapes, and the forced slavery of conquered peoples are deplorable by-products of war.  Looting of people’s goods and homes is also common.  The mythic accounts of the aftermath of the Trojan War by Homer, Euripides, and other Classical writers prove this point.  Walcott makes a comparison with these fictional “truths” with what happened in the New World by European explorers.  Walcott refers to Helen’s—the most beautiful and most desirable woman in the world—hair as a grey cloud.  Walcott mentions drizzle, mist, rain, and grey conditions.  This seems to produce a feeling of gloom even though the conquerors—the Greeks formerly and the Europeans currently—are victorious.  Walcott mentions the writer of the Odyssey as a man with clouded eyes.  Homer was reputedly blind, but many of the great writers, seers, and prophets were blind.  It is as if Walcott is saying that Homer not only lacked physiological vision but spiritual vision as well.  To me, this poem repudiates Western exploration and likens it to the annihilation of Troy by the Greeks.  But like I mentioned earlier, this poem would have little meaning without the knowledge of the Trojan War.

     Subservience is an aspect of colonial domination.  Several examples throughout the course of the semester have proven this.  Singh, Defoe, and Walcott refer to it because they understand its implications.  I think it is important for students to study these works in order to identify atrocities in the name of exploration or colonization.  But more important than identification, I think it is important to prevent such acts.