ALİ IŞIK 20270003005

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POSTCOLONIAL LITERARY CRITICISM

Postcolonial literary criticism is a broad and dynamic field that examines the lasting cultural,
political, and social impacts of colonialism and imperialism on literature and societies. It
emerged as a significant critical approach in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly
from the 1970s onwards, and continues to evolve.
Here’s a breakdown of its key aspects:
Core Concerns and Aims
Postcolonial literary criticism primarily aims to:
* Deconstruct Colonial Narratives: It critically analyzes how colonial powers represented
colonized peoples and cultures, often through stereotypes, exoticism, or a depiction of them as
“the Other.” It exposes the biases and power dynamics embedded in these representations.
* Amplify Marginalized Voices: It seeks to bring to the forefront the literature and
experiences of those who were colonized, giving voice to perspectives that were historically
silenced or suppressed by colonial discourse.
* Examine the Legacy of Colonialism: It investigates the ongoing effects of colonialism on
national identity, language, cultural practices, political structures, and economic systems in
formerly colonized nations.
* Challenge Eurocentrism: It questions the dominance of Western perspectives and literary
canons, advocating for a more inclusive and global understanding of literature.
* Explore Hybridity and Identity: It delves into the complex formation of identities in
postcolonial contexts, recognizing the blending of cultures, languages, and traditions that
resulted from colonial encounters.
Key Concepts and Terms
Several central concepts underpin postcolonial literary criticism:
* The Othering: The process by which the colonizer defines the colonized as fundamentally
different, inferior, and often exotic, justifying their dominance.
* Colonial Discourse: The system of knowledge, language, and practices that sustained
colonial power and shaped perceptions of both colonizer and colonized.
* Mimicry: The colonized subject’s adoption of the colonizer’s culture, language, or manners,
which can be both a form of assimilation and a subtle act of subversion.
 * Hybridity: The blending of cultures, languages, and identities that results from colonial
encounters, creating new, “in-between” spaces and identities.
* Subaltern: Referring to marginalized groups or individuals whose voices have been
historically excluded from dominant narratives, often due to their social, economic, or
political status.
* Orientalism: A term coined by Edward Said, referring to the Western construction of the
“Orient” (the Middle East and Asia) as exotic, irrational, and inferior, which served to justify
Western domination.
* Decolonization: Not just political independence, but the ongoing process of dismantling
colonial systems and structures, including the psychological and cultural legacies of
colonialism.
* Diaspora: The dispersion of people from their original homeland, often as a result of
colonialism, forced migration, or economic displacement, leading to new cultural formations
and transnational identities.
Major Theorists
Influential figures who shaped postcolonial literary criticism include:
* Edward Said: His seminal work Orientalism (1978) is considered foundational. Said argued
that Western scholarship and culture constructed a stereotypical and often negative image of
the “Orient” that served to justify colonial domination.
* Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Known for her work on the “subaltern” and the difficulties of
representing marginalized voices, particularly in her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” She
also explores the complexities of translation and the ethical responsibilities of literary
criticism.
* Homi K. Bhabha: He developed concepts like “mimicry” and “hybridity” to explore the
ambivalent and often subversive nature of colonial relationships and the formation of new
identities in postcolonial contexts.
* Frantz Fanon: A psychiatrist and philosopher from Martinique, his works like Black Skin,
White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961) analyzed the psychological effects
of colonialism on the colonized and the dynamics of liberation struggles.
* Chinua Achebe: A Nigerian novelist, his novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is a landmark work
that challenged colonial narratives by presenting a nuanced and complex portrayal of pre-
colonial Igbo society and the destructive impact of British colonialism.
* Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: A Kenyan writer and academic, he is a prominent advocate for the
decolonization of African languages and literatures, arguing for writing in indigenous
languages as an act of resistance against linguistic imperialism.
Impact and Significance
Postcolonial literary criticism has had a profound impact on literary studies and beyond:
 * Re-evaluation of the Literary Canon: It has led to a critical re-examination of canonical
Western texts, revealing their implicit colonial biases, and has brought attention to a vast body
of literature from formerly colonized regions.
* Interdisciplinary Connections: It draws on and influences various disciplines, including
history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and cultural studies.
* Understanding Global Dynamics: It helps us understand contemporary global power
dynamics, issues of globalization, migration, and ongoing forms of neo-colonialism.
* Promotion of Cultural Diversity: By highlighting diverse voices and experiences, it
contributes to a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of human culture and history.
* Focus on Power: It consistently reminds us that literature is not apolitical but is deeply
intertwined with power relations.
In essence, postcolonial literary criticism is a vital lens through which to analyze how
literature has been shaped by the historical realities of colonialism and how it continues to
grapple with its complex legacies.

STRUCTURALISM

Structuralism is an intellectual movement that emerged in the mid-20th century, profoundly

influencing various disciplines including linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, and literary
criticism. It’s rooted in the idea that meaning is not inherent in individual things but arises
from the relationships and systems of differences between them.
Origins and Core Principles:
Structuralism’s foundational concepts are largely derived from the Swiss linguist Ferdinand
de Saussure. His work, Course in General Linguistics (published posthumously in 1916), laid
the groundwork for understanding language as a system of signs.
Key Saussurean concepts crucial to structuralism:
* Langue vs. Parole:
* Langue: The abstract, underlying system of language, including its rules, grammar, and
vocabulary. This is the collective, shared system that allows communication to happen.
* Parole: Individual acts of speech or writing, specific utterances or texts.
Structuralists are primarily interested in the langue, the underlying system that enables the
parole.
* Sign, Signifier, and Signified:
 * Sign: The basic unit of meaning.
* Signifier: The sound-image or written form of a word (e.g., the word “tree”).
* Signified: The mental concept or idea associated with the signifier (e.g., the concept of a
tree).
Saussure argued that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary
(there’s no inherent reason “tree” refers to a tree) and based on convention within a given
language system. Meaning is established through difference – a word means what it does
because it’s not other words.
* Synchrony vs. Diachrony:
* Synchrony: Studying a language system at a particular point in time, focusing on its
structure and relationships.
* Diachrony: Studying the historical evolution and changes of a language over time.
Structuralism predominantly focuses on synchrony, aiming to uncover the stable,
underlying structures at a given moment.
 Binary Oppositions: A fundamental concept suggesting that meaning is often generated
through contrasting pairs (e.g., light/dark, male/female, good/evil, nature/culture). These
oppositions create tension and define categories within a system.
Structuralism in Literary Criticism:
Applying these linguistic principles to literature, structuralist literary critics treat literary texts
not as reflections of reality or authorial intention, but as systems of signs that generate
meaning through their internal relationships and adherence to underlying conventions.
Key aspects of structuralist literary criticism:
* Focus on Structure, Not Content: The emphasis is on how a text is structured and how it
creates meaning, rather than what it says or what an author intended.
* “Death of the Author”: Influenced by Roland Barthes (though more fully explored in post-
structuralism), structuralism suggests that the author’s intentions are irrelevant; the text itself
is the site of meaning.
* Universal Patterns: Structuralists seek to uncover universal structures and patterns that exist
across different literary works, genres, and even cultures. They believe that these patterns
reflect fundamental ways the human mind organizes experience.
* Narratology: A significant branch of structuralist literary criticism, narratology (pioneered
by Gérard Genette and Tzvetan Todorov) analyzes the underlying structures of narrative. It
examines elements like plot, character types, narrative voice, focalization, and temporal
sequencing, looking for recurring “grammar” of storytelling.
 * Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (1928): An early influential structuralist
work that identified 31 recurring “functions” or plot elements in Russian folktales,
demonstrating a universal structure.
* Genre as System: Structuralists view genres (e.g., sonnet, tragedy, detective novel) not just
as categories, but as systems with their own specific rules, conventions, and expectations that
govern how individual texts within that genre are created and understood.
* Intertextuality (early form): While more developed in post-structuralism, structuralism
recognizes that texts relate to and draw meaning from other texts and established literary
conventions.
Major Theorists in Literature:
* Ferdinand de Saussure: The linguistic foundation.
* Claude Lévi-Strauss: Applied structuralist methods to anthropology, particularly to the
study of myths, demonstrating how underlying binary oppositions structure cultural
narratives. His work heavily influenced literary structuralism.
* Roland Barthes: Early in his career, he was a prominent structuralist (e.g., S/Z). Later, he
moved towards post-structuralism.
* Roman Jakobson: A linguist who extended structuralist principles to the analysis of poetry,
focusing on the parallelism and linguistic functions within poetic texts.
* Gérard Genette: Developed sophisticated models for narratology, analyzing narrative
elements like tense, mood, and voice.
* Tzvetan Todorov: Contributed to narratology and the study of fantastic literature through a
structuralist lens.
* A.J. Greimas: Developed semiotic squares to analyze meaning through sets of binary
oppositions.
* Northrop Frye: While not strictly a structuralist in the Saussurean sense, his Anatomy of
Criticism (1957) sought to categorize literature into archetypal patterns and genres, showing a
structuralist impulse to find universal literary forms.
How it Works (Example):
A structuralist analysis of Romeo and Juliet might not focus on Shakespeare’s life or the
Elizabethan era. Instead, it would look at:
* Binary Oppositions: Love/Hate (Montagues vs. Capulets, Romeo/Juliet vs. Family feud),
Light/Dark, Life/Death, Individual/Society.
* Narrative Functions (Proppian-like): The “forbidden love” function, the “feuding families”
function, the “tragic misunderstanding” function.
* Archetypal Characters: The tragic lovers, the wise mentor (Friar Laurence), the hot-headed
antagonist (Tybalt).
 * Genre Conventions: How the play adheres to or deviates from the conventions of tragedy
(e.g., tragic flaw, catharsis, inevitable downfall).
Critiques of Structuralism:
Structuralism faced significant critiques, which ultimately led to the rise of post-structuralism:
* Over-determinism: Critics argued that structuralism’s emphasis on underlying systems
minimized individual agency, creativity, and the unique aspects of a text.
* Ahistorical: By focusing on synchrony, structuralism often overlooked the historical, social,
and cultural contexts that shape texts and their meanings.
* Neglect of the Subject: It largely ignored the role of the author and the reader in the
creation and interpretation of meaning.
* Static View of Meaning: Its search for stable, universal structures was seen as problematic,
as it struggled to account for the dynamic, shifting, and often ambiguous nature of language
and meaning.
* Logocentrism: Post-structuralists like Jacques Derrida argued that structuralism still
implicitly favored a “center” or stable origin of meaning, which deconstruction sought to
dismantle.
Despite its limitations, structuralism was a groundbreaking movement that provided new,
rigorous tools for analyzing texts, shifting focus from external factors to the internal
mechanics of language and literary form. It paved the way for subsequent critical theories,
even those that sought to challenge its premises.