In the first chapter I will discuss post-colonialism with its relative
issues, whereas in the second the central theme is Conrad and the
analysis of his attitude toward imperialism. Finally, in the third
chapter I take into consideration post-colonial criticism about
Conrad, reporting the critiques of four major post-colonial authors,
such as E. W. Said, V. S. Naipaul, C. Achebe and W. Harris. Not
surprisingly, most post-colonial critiques about Conrad relate to his
treatment of colonialism and the colonized, giving an interesting
view on imperialism from the perspective of those who actually
suffered imperial domination.
Chapter I POST-COLONIAL THEORY AND IMPERIALISM
1 Introduction to Post-colonial Theory
Defining post-colonialism is not an easy task, since it is a
portmanteau term including a range of cultural and theoretical
practices, which often have only colonialism as a common
landmark. Since all the discourses coming within post-colonialism
sprang initially from the appearance of the new literatures
produced in the formerly colonized countries, the term refers first
of all to these revolutionary practices. In fact, as colonies tried to
achieve political and cultural independence from Europe in the
course of the twentieth century, new literatures appeared in those
countries giving voice to the till then silent colonial subject.
Consequently, a new branch of studies, only later called post-
colonial, developed having as its object the mass of theories,
debates and issues that originated from the new confrontation
taking place between the ex-colonized and the ex-colonizer, which
the Western theories could not account for. In this sense, post-
colonial literatures and theories are those produced in African
countries, America, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean
countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Singapore, South Pacific Island countries and Sri Lanka; which are
all countries that experienced European, especially English,
colonization. Even countries that are not perceived as ex-colonies
nowadays, such as the USA and Ireland, have to be included in
post-colonial studies for their literary and theoretical contribution
to the field. In this case, it is useful to follow D. E. S. Maxwell’s
model that distinguishes between invaded and settler colonies. In
the case of invaded societies natives were colonized on their own
territories, colonization thus resulting in mere exploitation
conducted by locally residing foreign administrators and
representatives of the Empire. In settler colonies like the United
States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, the English colonizers
established themselves in the conquered territory dispossessing the
indigenous populations and creating a new site of the mother
country. As they gained political independence, they lost their
status of colonies; however, they maintained an imperialist attitude
towards the local natives, who were relegated to a marginal
position.
Contrary to what the adjective post-colonial may suggest, these
studies regard the cultural practices of the ex-colonies from the
beginning of their colonial exploitation to the present, including the
fight for independence and its achievement. Colonialism is the
essential character informing this branch of studies: limiting the
analysis of its effects to the post-independence period means being
reductive and not recognizing that new forms of colonialism still
dominate in many “post-colonial” societies. Although there are
scholars who use the term referring strictly to the post-colonial
experience, one cannot deny the fact that colonialism influenced
these countries before and after their independence from the mother
country, and that it is not always possible to discriminate between
the effects on the two periods.
As it clearly emerges from the explanation of the term itself, the
perspective from which these studies proceed is that of colonialism;
this should be kept in mind in order to avoid the inclusion in post-
colonialism of those kinds of marginality that did not originate
from colonialism. The confrontation is always between the newly
developed literatures and theories of the ex-colonies, and the old
imperialistic assumptions of the “centre”, which permitted and even
promoted the rising of the colonial expansion. Fundamental
moments in post-colonial practice are resistance to, assimilation
and, eventually, abrogation and appropriation of the Eurocentric
discourses that shaped the process of self-knowledge and self-
representation of the colonized.
Far from having exhausted their scope, post-colonial studies
already include a wide range of topics and issues, such as language,
place, hybridity, representation, resistance, nationalism, which
concern several theoretical fields, such as history, philosophy and
linguistics. One of the main aims of post-colonial practices is
subverting the universalistic Eurocentric assumptions that
established the superiority of the colonizer on the colonized
depriving him of a right to assert himself. Paradoxically, such an
abrogation of the imperialistic ideologies develops initially within
the binary opposition constructed by colonialism itself. Manichean
polarities opposing “self” and “other”, “civilized” and “native”,
“us” and “them”, which relegate the colonial subject to a marginal
reality, cannot be escaped until the post-colonial writer has
assimilated them in an attempt to contrast their defining value.
After the first phase of assimilation in which the native tries to
oppose colonialist ideologies without undermining their supposed
universal value, there comes a more radical attempt to dismantle
those theories denying their claim to universality. In this effort to
abrogate universalistic colonialist theories and to assert self-
identity, an important part was played by literature: it is in post-
colonial literary texts that resistance emerges first through the
choice of rhetorical devices, such as irony and allegory, that mine
the cultural authority of the Empire. As Elleke Boehmer argues in
her most recent book, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, the
objective of post-colonial writing is “the quest for personal and
racial/cultural identity”, in “the belief that writing is an integral part
of self-definition”, while “the emphasis is on historical
reconstruction.”
1
Even when post-colonial critical theory is not
theorized explicitly, its aims are recognizable in the works of major
writers and intellectuals, which help the post-colonial struggle for
self-assertion by dismantling pre-constructed imperialist-biased
ideologies. The main issues characterizing post-colonialism also
emerge for the first time in the creative works of post-colonial
writers, confirming post-colonial writing as the site par excellence
of the cultural as well as the political struggle of the formerly
colonized.
1
Elleke Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, pp. 228-229.
2 Exposition of the Main Issues
Language
Since language is the direct expression of culture, it has played a
fundamental role in conveying the imperialistic ideologies as well
as the supposed cultural supremacy of the European colonizer. In
fact, the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo claims in his The
Language of African Literature that “language carries culture and
culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire
body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our
place in the world.”
2
Therefore, imposing a language means
imposing “its system of values”, which “becomes the system upon
which social, economic and political discourses are grounded.”
3
Indeed, language is the means through which the Empire colonized
the rest of the world, culturally even before than economically or
politically, so it is not surprising that it has always been, and still is,
one of the most contested sites of discussion in post-colonial
studies. In fact, the first attempt to control the native was made
through the control over language; however, this meant different
practices in different countries. The imperial language was either
imposed on local idioms or made accepted as the “norm”, the
“standard” for those communications that claimed attention outside
the colonial space. In settler colonies the imperial language was
just transported from the mother country, as another piece of the
cultural baggage of the colonizer, and it completely silenced the
natives.
2
Ngugi wa Thiongo, ‘The Language of African Literature’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-
colonial Studies Reader, p. 290.
3
Bill Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-colonial Studies Reader, p. 283
At the moment of decolonization there were basically two kinds
of responses to the imposition of the imperial language: post-
colonial writers either chose rejection or subversion of the
imposed tongue. Representative of those who opted for the
rejection of the English language in their writing is the Kenyan
Ngugi wa Thiongo. By means of his artistic and theoretical work,
he tries to restore the Kenyan national and ethnic identity that, in
his opinion, only local pre-colonial idioms can convey, and to
contrast the imperial system of values diffused by English. As a
consequence, he has chosen to write in Gikuyu, the language of his
childhood that formed his first perception of reality, and to reject
English, which was the language of his formal education. As he
puts it: “the language of my education was no longer the language
of my culture.”
4
The most obvious consequence for Ngugi has been
the rejection of English and a return to his mother tongue, which he
considers as the cradle of his cultural identity.
Other writers have abandoned the idea of a return to local pre-
colonial idioms for different reasons. Some argue that it is not
possible to deny the influence of colonization and, consequently, of
English, just returning to indigenous languages. The hybridity of
post-colonial realities must be acknowledged and the use of
English as a linguistic expression of that hybridity must also be
accepted. For the Indian writer Raja Rao as well as for the Nigerian
novelist Chinua Achebe, English has to be adapted by post-colonial
artists to the particular characteristics of local actualities. Rao has
tried in his novels to conform the English language to Indian
literary style and rhythm, and to make it express local myths and
ideas. As he himself recognizes, “one has to convey in a language
4
Ngugi wa Thiongo, ‘The Language of African Literature’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-
colonial Studies Reader, p. 288.
that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own.”
5
Though it
requires a hard effort, the subversion of English is the only strategy
that recognizes the influence of the colonial experience while, at
the same time, dismantling its supporting biases. Therefore,
“nativizing and acculturating it”
6
is the device many post-colonial
novelists adopted, thus transforming English, the standard British
language, into as many different “englishes” as are the diverse
post-colonial realities.
7
These englishes allow the post-colonial
writer to voice his/her particular experience, while exploiting the
advantages of using an international language.
Education
Education is an extremely important means for establishing and
maintaining the imperialist control of the metropolitan centre over
the colonial subject. The aim of a colonialist education system is
diffusing the culture and, therefore, the values of the dominating
nation on the colonized, while controlling their cultural
developments. This was achieved through the teaching of
metropolitan culture with a Eurocentric method: English science,
history and literature, for example, were inculcated to the few
subjects who could avail themselves of the imperial school system.
In doing so, the imperial power not only propagated its culture
supposing it the only feasible teaching, but also created an
indigenous Western-oriented élite who would further diffuse the
metropolitan ideology to a larger mass. Post-colonial critics like
5
R. Rao, ‘Language and Spirit’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-colonial Studies Reader, p.
296
6
Braj B. Kachru, ‘The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Function and Models of Non-Native
Englishes’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-colonial Studies Reader, p. 294
7
B. Ashcroft et al., The Empire Writes Back, p. 8
Frantz Fanon, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Chinweizu, attribute the
‘mental colonization’ of nationalist élites to the colonial education
they received.
8
Of course, even if the mother country developed an education
system, it was always inadequate to the local demands for
education. Moreover, it never took into account indigenous culture
and scholarship. “Most colonial powers”, in fact, “stressed
humanistic studies, fluency in the language of the metropolitan
country, and the skills necessary for secondary positions in the
bureaucracy.”
9
However inadequate, this way of “educating” the
colonized also gave them the opportunity of rejecting imperial
values, once they had acquired them.
The linguistic predominance of the Empire was also constructed
and maintained through a rigid education system which never
admitted the teaching of indigenous languages. On the contrary,
missions before, and schools and universities afterwards, worked
hard to diffuse standard English as the only language that could
claim universal value. The cultural and historical dominance of
English was achieved most of all through the teaching of English
literature in the colonies, which gave the superiority and the
universality of the imperial culture it conveyed for granted. “In the
colonies as at home, English-language and -literature instruction
played a key role in naturalizing British values.”
10
The texts of the
English literary tradition became, and often still are, the media to
diffuse the universalistic ideologies of the mother country.
Accordingly, attempts to dismantle the imposed “truth” contained
in English texts includes the practice of rewriting novels of the
8
Elleke Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, p. 169.
9
Ph. G. Altbach, ‘Education and Neocolonialism’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-colonial
Studies Reader, p. 453.
10
E. Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, 1995, p. 169.
established literary canon. Examples of this technique of
subversion of literary texts are to be found in many post-colonial
novels, such as Jean Rhys’s rewriting of Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso
Sea (1966), and J. M. Coetzee’s redoing of Robinson Crusoe, Foe
(1986).
Although almost all formerly colonized countries have achieved
independence, their education system still remains either
Eurocentric or, more generally, Western-oriented. Educational neo-
colonialism may not be so evident and recognizable as economic
neo-colonialism, but it is a widespread reality in many developing
countries. Whether it consists in the imposition of foreign
textbooks in schools, or in Western-oriented syllabuses and
curricula, neo-colonial education still maintains the superiority of
metropolitan culture and the subjection of that of the ex-colonies.
Recognizing this nexus between education - and literature in
particular - and neo-colonial practices existing in many former
colonial countries, several post-colonial writers have denounced
the present state of things. In particular, they ask for a more
independent school system, which should privilege the diffusion of
national and indigenous cultures. One of the most famous
interventions in this matter is Ngugi wa Thiongo’s paper, ‘On the
Abolition of the English Department’
11
, where he asks for the
abolition of the Department of English at the University of Nairobi
and the creation of a Department of African Literature and
Languages. His request clearly implies a fundamental change in the
cultural and literary orientation of the Kenyan education system.
However, industrial countries continue to intervene in the nations
11
Ngugi wa Thiongo, ‘On the Abolition of the English Department’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds.,
The Post-colonial Studies Reader, pp. 438-442.
they control economically to impose their culture as well as their
lifestyle.
Development of Post-colonial Literatures
The appropriation of writing implies an assumption of the power
to dismantle metropolitan discourses and to assert post-colonial
difference from Europe. This process of appropriation, before, and
of subversion, afterwards, was hindered by the metropolitan control
over the education system, the modes of cultural production and the
means of communication. Writing in a post-colonial reality means
first of all acceding to metropolitan practices, such as literary
genres or theories, and trying to adapt them to indigenous
particularities. This gives the colonized the first opportunity of self-
assertion, an occasion of expressing the post-colonial point of
view.
The development of post-colonial literatures was gradual and
began with a process of self-consciousness that asserted difference
from the centre. At the beginning of colonization, the first texts that
described colonial actualities were produced by the colonizers,
representatives of the empire, white administrators, travellers,
explorers, etc. These descriptions of colonial countries and peoples
are written in the imperial language from a Eurocentric point of
view. Indigenous cultures are either totally neglected or referred to
only as a foil to the English one. When there is some kind of
confrontation it is only to show the extent of European superiority.
At a later stage of colonization, as a few natives had the privilege
of accessing to imperial education, they also had the opportunity to
write in the language of Empire. But, since their writing was
submitted to metropolitan control and permission, the potential for
subversion in their texts is very reduced. An example of this early
stage of (post-) colonial writing is Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka, which
is considered the product of African ‘missionary literature’. In
Chaka Mofolo makes an attempt to write the history and legends of
his people, from an African viewpoint. Thus, however indirectly,
he is claiming the right of the Africans to tell their truth about
themselves and to dismantle metropolitan denigrating stereotypes.
Solomon Plaatje’s Mhudi (1930), which is considered the first
novel by a black South African writer, is also an example of these
early responses by the colonized to the dominating colonialist
discourses, which tried to break the silence imposed on natives. In
fact, “Plaatje’s signal achievement remains that of examining
imperialism from the point of view of those subjected to it.”
12
At a
later stage, we find Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958)
which, by showing the complex social organization and cultural
traditions of a group of Ibo, openly undermines the colonialist
discourse that depicted Africa as a place of darkness and savagery.
The last stage, that of independent and fully developed post-
colonial writing, expressing its whole potential of subversion and
differentiation, was possible only after the former colonies
achieved political freedom. Once the imperial monopoly of the
means of communication was over, or at least reduced to an
indirect neo-colonial form of control, post-colonial writers were in
the condition of employing more radical practices to subvert
metropolitan values and their claims to superiority and universality.
12
M. Hooper, ‘Two Sides of Empire: Heart of Darkness and Mhudi’, p. 41
Place and Displacement
Place and displacement are major concerns in post-colonial
discourses. Obviously, place does not mean only land; in fact, the
term implies a sense of belonging to a historically and culturally
defined territory. Thus, belonging to a place also implies an
identifying relationship with a space that has been appropriated
through a process of cultural definition. This process of
appropriation entails geographical exploration and, most of all, the
act of ‘naming’, that is projecting the cultural values inherent in
language to the place. The sense of displacement comes, either in
the colonizer experiencing a new land, or the colonized submitted
in his own country to using a new language, from the perception of
a gap existing between one’s cultural/linguistic categories and the
reality one has to voice.
In the case of invaded societies, the native feels a sense of
displacement because he has to express his traditional culture and
values in an imposed language, which is not the one that formed his
perception of reality. This is the case with many former colonies,
such as India, the most part of African and Eastern countries, the
indigenous societies of America, Canada and Australia. If these
subjects wanted to voice their social alienation they had to do so in
their master’s language, thus experiencing also a linguistic
alienation. Of course, this entailed a sense of inadequacy; as the
Indian novelist Raja Rao said: “One has to convey in a language
that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own.”
13
For many post-
colonial writers the indigenous idiom is their mother tongue, while
the colonial language is that of their intellectual formation, as in
13
R. Rao, ‘Language and Spirit’, in B. Ashcroft et al., eds., The Post-colonial Studies Reader,
p. 296.
Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiongo’s case. To fill the gap between his
perception of place as a native, and his use of a foreign language to
describe it, the post-colonial writer has to adapt English to his
needs, that is transform the received ‘standard’ into a local variant
of ‘english’. One of the most significant examples of social,
cultural and linguistic displacement is to be found in the Caribbean
countries. There, indigenous peoples were exterminated by
European colonizers and substituted with slaves brought from
Africa, who were prevented from using their language by mixing
them with members of different tribes. Therefore, these inhabitants
transported to the European colony not only experienced
dislocation, but also cultural denigration. Moreover, in the
Caribbean there were also Europeans, who felt the sense of
alienation common to settler societies, produced by geographical
dislocation. More recently, the arrival of numerous Eastern workers
from India and China has further complicated the situation in the
multicultural Caribbean society.
In the case of settler societies, which established on alien
territories, the sense of displacement came from the difficulty,
almost impossibility, to understand the new place by means of a
language and of cultural structures that were not adequate to the
task. Despite the colonizer’s effort to appropriate the alien
environment through its exploration and description, there remains
always an unknown space, something he cannot grasp wholly. It is
this inability to reduce the new place to European standards that
produces uneasiness in the colonizer. The European colonizer, so
confident in the power of discrimination of rationality and logic,
science and progress, must admit his defeat and lack of
comprehension.
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