Applying a Postcolonial Lens to Literature

What is Postcolonial Criticism?

Postcolonial criticism involves reading a text according to postcolonial ideas and concepts, which revolve around the ways in the West has often defined the non-West, and how the non-West defines itself. When conducting a postcolonial criticism, we're thinking about structures and beliefs related to colonialism and colonization, as well as the ways in which power is distributed amongst colonizers and the (previously and currently) colonized, and the means by which these structures are maintained.

At the heart of this mode of interpretation is the consideration of the following core conflict:

The coloniser (past or present) vs. The colonised (past or present)

Postcolonial Criticism In A Nutshell

These slides contain a broad overview of what Postcolonial Criticism does. They are good for students who want to remind themselves of some of this theory's key aspects. For a deeper understanding of what a feminist critic does, explore the resources below.

This video provides some basic information about key concepts within postcolonial theory, as well as some important postcolonial thinkers. There are also examples of postcolonial theory applied to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Key Figures

Edward Said
Homi Bhaba
Gayatri Spivak

Key Concepts

Questions to Consider:

1. Is there a representation of non-Europeans as strange, exotic, or “Other”?

2. In what ways is language used to support or subvert the power dynamics between colonized or colonizer?

3. Are there any examples of ambivalence, mimicry, or hybridity, and what are the results?

4. How does the text present relationships between the colonized and the colonizer? Are there any ‘cross-cultural interactions’ and what are the results?

5. Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different post-colonial populations?

6. How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples?