Colonial and Post Colonial Literature

Post Colonial Literature Historical literature is filled with examples of pre- and post-colonialist paradigms. Within each of these models, however, there is a certain part of a larger story that can only be told in the larger view of the historical process. One of the grand themes that help us wade through that process is that of the dehumanization of the individual. For whatever psychotically reasons, humans seem to have the need to change others into less than human in order to subjugate them economically, intellectually, or culturally.

We might even think of the process of imperialism as practiced by the European powers as dehumanization of culture and society; begun at the micro level and then evolving into the macro. This dehumanization was particularly exemplified by the manner in which indigenous cultures were decimated, how families were torn apart and scattered all over the Empire, and the manner in which the Colonials expected their values to be adopted by anyone and everyone. Chinua Achene is one author who deals directly with this subject.

Not only is the title of Achebe's Things Fall Apart appropriate for a study looking at the juxtaposition of historical trends on culture, it is spot on in terms of the issues that fall into place, reminiscent of the "Domino Effect" so feared during the early Cold War, when European culture meets a traditional African culture. In Things Fall Apart, dehumanization occurred as almost a disease -- a virus passed from the White man to the natives.

Not only did the English regard the Africans as something other than human (they degrade their culture and religion); after some time, Western ideals changed the way the Africans viewed themselves and their tribal unit. In Things Fall Apart, the central character, Okonkwo, finds that the interference of the missionaries and English "entrepreuers" disrputed the tribes. "The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay.

Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart" Achebe., Chapter 20). In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written at the end of the 19th century while Britain was the greatest power in the world, the very nature of Africa is considered filled with disease and contagion. But, the theme of contagion is not just biological- but psychological and sociological as well.

This theme is echoed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, in which the Puritan belief that humanity exists in a state of depravity and sin, and with similar symbolism in color and shape: "The road grew wilder and drearier…. leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil" (Hawthrone, 23). Of course, in Heart of Darkness, it is clear from the start that the trip into the "bowels" of Africa is not one of a positive or optimistic nature.

"Mad terror scattered them [the natives], men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned" (Conrad, 21).

But it is in the explanation of the nature of Marlow's universe when the boat moves back towards civilization that sets the stage for what the diseased continent has done: The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time (Conrad, 188).

Apocalpyse Now, the film version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and pieces of Lord Jim, set in Vietnam, continues.