What is Postcolonialism?
By including this theory in the classroom, it allows students to examine their own culture and how the ideology and values of said culture has shaped the way they see others.
In his work Orientalism, Edward Said challenges the Western idea of "the East".
Postcolonialism encourages students to question the lens--stereotypes--that are perpetuated by their culture. In addition, by recognizing these biases, one is better able to read into the silences of a text. For example:
This exert from Aphra Behn's Oroonoko highlights the need to make something that's "other" palatable to the Western idea of beauty and refinement. Through the lens of postcolonization, readers are able to construct a different perspective from what is not being said in the text.
Lady A
By including this theory in the classroom, it allows students to examine their own culture and how the ideology and values of said culture has shaped the way they see others.
In his work Orientalism, Edward Said challenges the Western idea of "the East".
Postcolonialism encourages students to question the lens--stereotypes--that are perpetuated by their culture. In addition, by recognizing these biases, one is better able to read into the silences of a text. For example:
...especially when I knew he spoke French and English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so much of him, I was as greatly surprised when I saw him as if I had heard nothing of him; so beyond all report I found him. He came into the room, and addressed himself to me and some other women with the best grace in the world. He was pretty tall, but of a shape the most exact that can be fancied: the most famous statuary could not form the figure of a man more admirably turned from head to foot. His face was not of that brown rusty black which most of that nation are, but of perfect ebony, or polished jet. His eyes were the most awful that could be seen, and very piercing; the white of 'em being like snow, as were his teeth. His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the negroes. The whole proportion and air of his face was so nobly and exactly formed that, bating his color, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome. There was no one grace wanting that bears the standard of true beauty. His hair came down to his shoulders, by the aids of art, which was by pulling it out with a quill, and keeping it combed; of which he took particular care. Nor did the perfections of his mind come short of those of his person; for his discourse was admirable upon almost any subject: and whoever had heard him speak would have been convinced of their errors, that all fine wit is confined to the white men, especially to those of Christendom; and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a soul, as politic maxims, and was as sensible of power, as any prince civilized in the most refined
This exert from Aphra Behn's Oroonoko highlights the need to make something that's "other" palatable to the Western idea of beauty and refinement. Through the lens of postcolonization, readers are able to construct a different perspective from what is not being said in the text.
Lady A
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