Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

and Caribbean descen t, remain ed at the periphery as the anti -thesis o f Europe , the
inferio r "other: with all its connotations of savagery .
Of equal significance is the response to eurocen tric ideo logies written in history
and me fictional representation of blacks in eighteenth and nineteenth century western
texts ; it is a phenomeno n now defined as postcolonial literature. Unde rgird ing such
literary discourse are the constructs of postcolonial theory which challenges and
interrogates colonialist assumptions about the history and culture of the colonized.
Colonizati on, like slavery, involved the destruction and deliberate undervaluing of a
people's dignity and culture while consciously elevating and propagating those of the
colonizer. In seeking to undo eurocen tricism, postcolonial writers emphasize that the
colonized had a rich culture and history prior to European domination. The purpose of
postcolonial discourse is to abo lish all distinctions between the imperial centre and the
periphery as well as other binaries which still remain as the legacy of colonialism.
Postco lonial literature is evidenced by the revising, rewriting and.reformulating
of western texts in ways that challen ge, interrogate and re-eval uate the assumptions
wrinen into European literature. For examp le, 1. M. Coetzee in Foe and Wailing f or
dle Barbarians subverts Crusoe's concept of empire building and the violen ce against
the innocent associated with tunin g me native. Cbinua Achebetells a different storyof
impe ri.alism and the missionary enterprise from the African 's perspective in Things
Fall Apart and Arrow of God. In portraying a pre-colonial African worldview.
postcolonial fictional writers re-presen t Africansas intelli gent and rati onal and
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