Keaton Patterson

2 October 2011

Self, Other, Us: The Promise of Dialogue between Colonial and Postcolonial Texts

The dialogue between colonial and postcolonial literature is unique in its cultural and political immediacy to the historical narrative that frames global human relations. Indeed, history is a narrative, and like any narrative it is shaped by the authority of its perspective; it is the control of this perspective that is the point of interest (and struggle) within colonial-postcolonial literary discourse. As Edward Said has noted, the Western empires used “cultural forms like the novel … in the formation of imperial attitudes, references, and experiences” (xii). For example, colonial texts such as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” clearly delineate the cultural and racial differences between colonizers and colonized, casting each in the respective roles of self and other and ultimately serving to rationalize and reinforce the imperial system. However, after decolonization and the rise of postcolonial literature, writers such as Jamaica Kincaid introduced a new perspective that voiced a challenge to the primacy of this historical narrative. Postcolonial texts, such as “A Small Place” and Lucy, invert this self/other binary, exposing its arbitrary, oppressive structure and pulling colonial literature of the established Western canon into “a process of dialogue and necessary correction” (Gugelberger 582). As a result, this intertextuality produces a cultural-political dialectic of self and other that illuminates the dehumanizing hegemony of colonial (and neo-colonial) exploitation, empowers the oppressed through the assertion of an independent perspective, and perhaps points the way for a new, more egalitarian synthesis of human relations.

Robinson Crusoe is widely considered to be the first modern English novel. It is also a prime example of how this literary genre shaped (and was shaped by) the culture of imperialism in which it was produced. The adventures of Crusoe are in many ways an allegory for the colonial mindset of 18^th century England. The castaway protagonist, trying to escape the social constraints of his home country, seeks his fortunes overseas and in effect comes to create an absolute monarchy for himself on a Caribbean island. Importantly, while Crusoe constantly fears the presence of cannibal natives, the island is depicted as largely deserted and without any of the markings of humanity or civilization. Defoe’s presentation of the “new world” reflects the European perspective in which the intrepid settler carves a civilized world out of the forest primeval. Interestingly, Crusoe’s initial settlement is centered around the tallest hill on the island from which he carries out “Works and Improvements” (132) to the wilderness, seemingly echoing John Winthrop’s puritanical vision of the “city upon a hill.” Of course, as Crusoe himself suspects and eventually discovers, this new world is inhabited, but for most of the novel his utter solitude becomes a metaphor for a perceived wasteland awaiting the cultivation of an enlightened and Christian European mind.

When Crusoe does finally make contact with natives, the way in which he approaches the encounter is typical of the beginnings of the self/other dialectic. Perhaps naturally, he can only take note of the external differences between them, especially the natives’ nakedness and ritual cannibalism which suggest to Crusoe a cultural and racial inferiority. Soon after this event, Crusoe is beset by dreams, first of killing the natives for their inhumanity, and then of enslaving one for his own use. When he finally gets the chance to do so, he states, “[N]ow was my Time to get me a Servant, and perhaps a Companion, or Assistant” (146). It is telling of the English perception of new world natives that, even after decades of solitude, Crusoe is excited at the prospects of acquiring a servant rather than a relationship with an equal. Indeed, the thought that he would be equals with the man he names Friday never crosses his mind.

During his years on the island with Friday, Crusoe’s every interaction with him is intended to assimilate the young native into English culture and religion. It is important to note that, other than the native environmental knowledge that can aid in his escape, Crusoe does not value any of the cultural aspects of Friday’s people. He threatens to kill Friday if the native partakes of cannibalism again, and views him with suspicion when he longs for his homeland. Ultimately, the pattern that emerges in their relationship is that of paternalism: “his [Friday’s] very Affections were ty’d to me, like those of a Child to his Father” (151). This pattern is typical of the colonial mindset of the self and other. There is never an equal exchange of human relations, but always a master/slave hierarchy in which the dominant culture “benevolently” improves the inferior while simultaneously benefitting from the natural resources of the new world and the labor of the natives.

The colonial concept of self and other is made even more explicit in Kipling’s short story, “The Man Who Would Be King.” Early in this text, the narrator succinctly describes the English perspective on its colonies: “Native States were created by Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers, and tall-writing” (4). However, these “native states” and the “tall-writing” they afford also provide the Englishman with an arena in which to define himself against an alien other to dominate. While the sole intention of the two soldiers, Carnehan and Dravot, in becoming kings of Kafiristan is the economic exploitation of its native peoples, in contrast to Crusoe, the extent of their success is due to their ability to merge the two different cultures together—and it is ultimately this merger that brings about their downfall.

At first, Carnehan and Dravot intend this merger to subsume the inferior natives into English culture. Importantly, their belief that they can accomplish this feat is based in racialized colonial thinking. Due to the fair skin of the Kafiris, the soldiers believe these people to be more capable of assimilation: “These men aren’t niggers; they’re English! Look at their eyes—look at their mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own houses. They’re the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they’ve grown to be English” (20). However, the natives do not see such sameness. Even though they are subservient to the soldiers, the natives’ deification of them serves to establish a defining boundary between the two groups. In other words, while the natives accept the domination of the English, they also desire to remain distinct from their rulers. This precarious balance is maintained until Dravot fixates on taking a native bride. As a result, he threatens the boundary between self and other, leading to the Kafiris’ revolt against him and Carnehan.

On the one hand, this story seems to be a parody of English colonial hubris. However, on the other, it metaphorically reinforces the self/other binary on which the logic of imperialism rests. While the military domination and religious hegemony of Carnehan and Dravot are depicted as standard practices of colonial oppression, miscegenation is portrayed as a moral degeneration that threatens colonizer and colonized alike. It seems, according to Kipling, that there is a right and a wrong way to dominate and subsume the other. Ultimately, the hierarchy must remain clearly delineated; and therefore, the boundaries between races and nations must be maintained.

While the texts of Defoe and Kipling strive to maintain a distinction between self and other that is based on inequality and domination, postcolonial writings, such as Kincaid’s “A Small Place” and Lucy, alter the perspective on this concept in order to challenge it from the bottom up. In Kincaid’s writings the colonial adventures of England do not “improve” the native lands and cultures, but instead destroy and erase them:

And so everywhere they went they turned it into England; and everybody they met they turned English. But no place could ever really be England, and nobody who did not look exactly like them would ever be English, so you can imagine the destruction of people and land that came from that. (“A Small Place” 92)

Comparing this take on the effects of colonization and imperialism to those in Robinson Crusoe and “The Man Who Would Be King,” a stark contrast is immediately apparent. In both of Kincaid’s texts, the narrator is caught in the tension between an erased cultural heritage and the dominant historical narrative forced upon her. This perspective inverts the self/other binary, highlighting the fact that the notion of the other is a social construct of imperial domination; it is not that the colonized have no selfhood of their own but that it has been taken from them.

Still, postcolonial writing such as Kincaid’s is not merely an act of reclaiming the autonomy of a subjugated self. More than that, it represents hope for the synthesis of a new identity. This is the quest of the narrator of Lucy when she comes to America. She is aware of the negative effects that colonialism has had on her life and the lives of her people, but she does not want a return to pre-colonial days. She wants something new. Rather than seeking to reclaim her past, Lucy wants to escape it. It is this desire that feeds her animosity towards her mother, whom Lucy sees as totally and internally colonized, even after decolonization. It is the desire to break free from the path her imposed history has laid out for her. However, no matter how far she runs, she also realizes that such an escape is impossible:

I was now living a life I had always wanted to live. I was living apart from my family in a place where no one knew much about me; almost no one knew my name, and I was free more or less to come and go as pleased me. The feeling of bliss, the feeling of happiness, the feeling of longing fulfilled that I had thought would come with this situation was nowhere to be found inside me. (158)

Ultimately, Lucy’s inability to find fulfillment lies in the fact that, while her narrative inverts the self\other binary of imperial logic present in colonial texts, she nevertheless defines herself in opposition to everything she does not want herself to be. There is no synthesis, only antithesis and denial. Her present, no matter the place she is in, is still filtered through the memories of her past.  

However, for the narrator’s of Kincaid’s texts, as well as for all of humanity in the postcolonial world, there is still a hope for a new, more inclusive and egalitarian historical narrative. This is the hopeful promise that the dialogue between colonial and postcolonial texts offers. Through the dialogic analysis of such literary texts, the dominant historical narrative is opened up to a polyvocal and democratic perspective. As such, colonial-postcolonial literary discourse has the power to help facilitate the collapse of the oppressive, divisive self/other binary which lies at the heart of imperialism, colonialism, and racism.              

Works Cited

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994. Print.

Gugelberger, Georg M. “Postcolonial Cultural Studies.” The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary

Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 581-584. Print.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. NY: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990. Print.

---. “A Small Place.” The Post-colonial Studies Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft et al.

            NY: Routledge, 1995. 92-94. Print.

Kipling, Rudyard. “The Man Who Would Be King.” [class handout], 1888. Web

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Print.