Transcript Reading Contemporary Fiction Week 10

Reading
Contemporary
Fiction
Week 10
Post-Colonial British Writing
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Colonialism/Ideologies of Empire
Binaries of empire
Post-colonialism
Images of London
The role of the former colonised living in the metropolis
‘centre’
• White Teeth as a post-colonial novel
Key Concepts
• What do you think of when you hear ‘London’?
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Images
People
Places
History
LONDON
• http://www.google.com.au/search?q=london&hl=en&clie
nt=firefox-a&hs=zJE&rls=org.mozilla:enGB:official&prmd=ivnsum&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei
=kCfHTfy2DoXcvwPC_vSyAQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&
ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CCQQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih
=547
Images of London
“It is a mellow autumn day. I look out the window and
am surprised that the Downs exist. There has always
been something childish about England for me.
Haywards Heath
Wivelsfield
Burgess Hill
Hassock
Depictions of Englishness
Names so silly and twee they must be
made up. The constant surprise of
this land, that it is actually green and
actually pleasant. That it is actually
there” (41). From The Gathering.
Anne Enright. 2007
contd
• Enright’s observations point to one of the central themes of
post-colonial writing. The ways in which London (and
England) has been written into our cultural consciousness.
It’s a city we can all visualise, even if we have never seen it.
As Australians, we are a colony of Britain and part of the
Commonwealth. Terms such as ‘the mother country’ are part
of our cultural lexicon.
• “At the height of imperial power in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, London was the great metropolis, the world’s
largest city” (Ball, 4).
Imagining London
• The metropolis is the privileged centre; the colony is the
lesser other
• Binaries of empire/colonialism:
• Centre/margin
• Civilisation/savagery, the primitive
• European/ non-European
• White/non-white
• Christian/pagan
• The ‘logic’ of colonialism is that any annexation of
another country is ‘right,’ and of benefit to that country.
Ideology of Empire
• What is interesting is that we still
associate London with its empirical
history. It is still seen as the centre of
the contemporary world. As a
metropolis or a ‘world city’.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6omQ5JjjLsE&feature
=related
• 2:25 – 7:53
London and Empire
• After formal de-colonization “the international
citizenry of empire converged on London in a
phenomenon sometimes called the re-invasion of the
centre or, in the words of Jamaican Poet, Louise
Bennet, ‘Colonizin in reverse’” (Ball, p.4).
• As Ball also writes “With over two million non-white
residents in the year 2000, London has been
transformed; demographically it is becoming more
and more global (or transnational) and less and less
traditionally – that is, ethnically, racially or even
nationally, - English or British” (p,5).
Geographies of the City
• This conflicting ideas of London (the old empire and seat of
power versus the transnational city populated with non-British
immigrants) can be seen throughout the city.
Financial District
Brick Lane
From Liverpool Street
Station
• This clash between our cultural conceptions of
London (Big Ben, London Bridge, Covent
Garden, Buckingham Palace and so on) and the
actual city with its cultural and ethnic diversity
(Lambeth, Brixton, Brick Lane) means that
formulating a singular cultural identity is
difficult, if not impossible. London is all these
things at the same time.
Imaginary London?
• For a city such as London, postcolonialism has a multitude of
meanings.
• The city has been formally de-colonised (as has the British
Empire), yet it is imbued with the ideology of its colonial or
Empirical glory.
• The city is also home to a diverse population – deriving
primarily from seats of former colonies – India, Pakistan,
Jamaica, Africa.
Post-colonialism and
London
• Ball suggests that for post-colonial authors writing from
or about London, there are several factors which go into
their work:
• Perception of London (from their own colonised view)
• Perception of London (compared to their place of origin)
Post-Colonial Writers and
London
• What lies at the heart of much British postcolonial writing, then, is
the difficulty, and importance of, holding onto one’s cultural identity.
• Examples of post-colonial texts with a British focus: The God of
Small Things, Bend it Like Beckham, East meets West, Brick Lane
and, of course, White Teeth.
• Think about how these compare when examined next to the plethora
of historical fictions which re-enforce our ideas about English
Literature: Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, the Brontë
sisters, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf. Only a few of these writers
actually write about London. And it is important to note that these
writers show us how different London is compared to other English
cities or villages.
Post-Colonial British
Writing
• Born in India, Roy writes in English, and her debut novel won
the prestigious Booker Prize in 1997. She has since written
non-fiction activist books such as The Cost of Living.
• The God of Small Things is set in India. It explores
colonialism in Indian culture by focussing on how the death of
Sophie Mol – Chacko’s English daughter, brings the Indian
caste system to light. The Kochamma family have both
profited from colonialism and suffer because of it.
Recent post-colonial
texts: The God of Small
Things by Arundhati Roy.
“Chacko said that going to see The Sound of Music was an extended
exercise in Anglophilia.
Ammu said, ‘Oh come on the whole world goes to see The Sound of
Music. It’s a World Hit.’
‘Nevertheless, my dear,’ Chacko said in his Reading Aloud Voice,
‘Never. The. Less’” (55)
Anglophilia (the privileging of England and ‘Englishness’) is a
central concern of the text:
"They were a family of Anglophiles. Pointed in the wrong
direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace
their steps because their footsteps had been swept away" (52).
The God of Small Things
• The same cultural confusion can be seen in the character of
Samad in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.
• “I don’t wish to be a modern man! I wish to live as I always
meant to! I wish to return to the East” (145).
• Note here that Samad does not say he wishes to return to India,
he says the East; he is referring to a cultural idea, rather than a
geographical location.
• And as Shiva notes “And who … can pull the West out of ‘em
once it’s in?” (145)
White Teeth
Magid and Millat
• It is when Samad separates his sons that we see just how the
notions of East and West function in the book.
• Magid is sent to India, Millat remains in London. Yet it is
Magid who becomes more ‘English’: Samad dreads his
relatives seeing his son “this Iqbal the younger with his bow
ties, and his Adam Smith and his E.M. bloody Forster and his
atheism!” (424).
• As Abdul-Mickey notes when meeting the recentlyreturned Magid:
“Speaks fuckin’ nice, don’t he? Sounds like a right
fuckin’ Olivier. Queen’s fucking English and make no
mistake. What a nice fella. You’re the kind of
clientele I could do wiv in here, Magid, let me tell
you. Civilised and that” (449).
• On the other hand, it is Millat, who was born and bred in
England, who turns to Muslim fundamentalism. For Millat,
this is his way of rebelling against the status quo. Ironically, it
is his love of Western gangster movies which provides the
template for his rage.
• “It was his most shameful secret that whenever he opened a
door … the opening of Goodfellas ran through his head … ‘As
far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster'”
(446)
• He desperately tries not to think this, instead thinking
“‘As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to
be a Muslim’. He knew in a way this was worse, but
he just couldn’t help it … he always carried dice, even
though he had no idea what a crap game actually was
… he could cook a killer seafood linguine, though a
lamb curry was completely beyond him” (446).
• Perhaps the difficulties inherent in the notion of
cultural identity for the characters in White Teeth
can best be summed up here:
• “No fictions, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs
– this is how Irie imagined her homeland.
Because homeland is one of those magical
fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity
that have now passed into the language” (402).
White Teeth
• White Teeth is a post-colonial novel because:
• Its narrative draws in a range of characters from Anglo,
Caribbean and Indian backgrounds, asking what it means to
be ‘English.’
• Although it borrows from conventions of realism, it also
complicates it by being such a sprawling narrative – in terms
of time periods, characters and issues.
• Is told in a 3rd person voice, enabling range and diversity, but
preventing too close an identification with a single
protagonist.
• Resists tight closure – although Irie’s child pulls many
threads together
• Explicitly challenges binaries of ‘race,’ gender and place