Letteratura Post-Coloniale, Letteratura Inglese 1

AMBRIDGE

Emily’s journal as an example of travelogue

In Imperial Eyes, M. Louise Pratt (post-colonial critic) considers the ways in which European

travelogues were used to represent cultural difference in what she calls ‘contact zone’ i.e.

people geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other.

‘Colonial

Travelogues have shaped European mental representation of the Other’ and so

contributed to the stereotypes still present in today’s racist discourse. Imperial Eyes and the

theory it displays, has to do with the so-called Colonial Discourse (the term colonial refers

to the all context of colonialism). It has to do with imperialism and textuality. Imperialism and

colonialism worked through textuality, using languages, words, and phrases to subdue

people. The contact zone is that space of hybridity, where cultures meet each other.

Emily tries to be a neutral observer, in fact she uses rhetorical strategies of the perfect

scientist, this is evident in the ways she introduces her pseudo-scientific truths. In the

aftermath of the Enlightenment, scientific writing sounds objective and truthful. In colonial

writing, the notion of absolute objectivity is false. It is used to construct a Eurocentric

Emily: ‘as is commonly known’ p. 24; ‘I am led to believe’ p. 28; ‘it should be

perspective.

clear’ p. 25; “The gentleman informed me, in a short but edifying lecture, that the true natives

of this region were of an Indian origin (hence the name West Indies). Sadly, they were

unused to European ways and has to be dispatched.”

discovered to be too troublesome and

P. 24. Despite her objective formulation, her words contain her subjectivity. She never

questions white superiority; she always takes it for granted. She always uncritically

accepts historical facts and events that white men tell her, without investigate about their

truth. As a would-be scholar, her diligent report reveals an un uncritical mind rather than an

investigative mind. When Emily describes black people what she usually does is to employ

a zoological vocabulary. Her choice of words and terms is not innocent. Language is never

innocent. Her expressions have negative consequences on black people; above all, in front

of the unknown, which is everything that she does not know, she describes it using a

European code. She remains limited, trapped inside the European world view and language.

Still on a carriage on her way to the plantation, she comes across “a number of pigs (…),

and after them a small parcel of monkeys.” But what she has taken for pigs and monkeys

are “nothing other than negro children, naked as they were born, parading in a feral manner”

(pp. 23-4). She repeatedly associates the black inhabitants of the island with the animal

kingdom and classifies them as subhuman. In negating their humanity, she constructs the

slaves different from white people and their unredeemable savagery.

As for identity, is not something essential, it is a cultural construct, being a result of our lives,

of our way of thinking and living, our history and stories. We are made up of different stories,

which are the result of our encounters. Identity is always negotiated, it is changeable, not

fixed. Cultural identity of the post-colonial subject is always fluid, displaced, it crosses

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different spaces and times, it crosses different borders and cultures. Emily’s point of view

expresses an idea of identity and culture, that is fixed, unchangeable, with no way out

and no remedy. The colonisers’ role was that of making black people civilised. She refers to

slave homes as “narrow nests” (67) and the noises coming from the slave village as a distant

“braying” (32). Observing the black people’s favourite pastime of dancing after sunset, she

comments as follows: “their movements appeared to be wholly dictated by the caprice of the

moment” (p. 44) Throughout the text there are many examples of Emily’s reflections about

her changing ideas, and in this way, she constructs ‘otherness’. Through language, Emily

builds black people otherness. She reacts to the unknown, by building their difference, using,

in Emily’s mind,

and creating stereotypes. The colony and its inhabitants are constructed

which mirrors the European mind. “I looked on with revulsion as these cannibals clamoured

to indulge themselves with this meat, and I wished that with the growth of civilisation in the

might soon cease” (p. 44)

negro, the gorging of such unacceptable swinish parts Emily casts

a disapproving look upon black people’s passion for wearing extravagant clothes on

Sundays and festive occasions. She prefers to see “the negroes, male and female, in their

filthy native garb, for in these circumstances they do not violate laws of taste which civilized

people have spent many centuries to establish.” (p. 66) The eating habits of the slaves make

Emily be convinced that they are below or beyond what she considers properly human and

that’s why she feels this hate towards them, their cultures, and their habits. She criticises

“their ability to dress without concern for conventional morality” (p. 21). For Emily, their half-

nakedness is itself sign and symptom of sexual intemperance: “Negro relations would

appear to have much in common with those practised by animals in the field, for they seem

to find nothing unnatural in breeding with whomsoever they should stumble upon.” (p. 36)

The Process of Othering

Colonial discourse is based on the concept of difference. It reserves subject-hood for the

coloniser and the objecthood for the colonised. A series of dichotomized hierarchies

construct the colonial other and generate stereotypes to suggest that the other is entirely

‘other’

knowable. Difference is constructed through language. The term refers to anyone

who is separated from one self. The existence of others become crucial in defining our place

in the world and in defining what is normal. In the colonial context, the Eurocentric eye is

always the subject; on the contrary, the other, that is black people, are considered objects,

completely knowable. The subject is the one who has the power to know, everything that is

‘other’

knowable is an object. According to post-colonial theories, the existence of the is

crucial because the subject exists in his (colonised) gaze. In colonial discourse the

subjectivity of the colonisers is in the colonised gaze but the identity of the colonised is

located in the imperial eyes. The term “othering” describes the process by which colonial

discourses produce their subjects. Of course, the colonial discourse is a discourse of

power, based on violence, exploitation, and unequal relations. It is also important to notice

‘colonised

that the colonising other is established at the same time as its others’ are

produces as subjects. The construction of the Other is fundamental in in the construction of

the self. Othering is a process of self-definition.

Emily’s ‘colonial

pseudo-scientific objectivity is employed to construct the other’ and

to sustain the European hegemony. Native people of the colonies have been constructed

by the European colonisers as the colonial Other. This construction is based on the concept

of difference, and on a series of dichotomies (white/black, civilization/savagery). Emily can’t

offered by the black slaves: “I (…) informed

stand to hear the distorted version of English

her that I had no desire to hear my mother-tongue mocked by the curious thick utterance of

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the negro language” (29) The English language becomes a site of contest and of a

revolutionary struggle. The colonised appropriates the English language of the master and

uses it for his scope. Emily lays at the centre of the colonial project as Franz Fanon said in

his work “Black skin. White masks” published in 1952, a man who has a language possess

as a consequence the world expressed and implied by that language. Language is the

means by which European people expressed cultural differences, power, and imbalance.

the ‘Post-colonial Literature’ written

Today the literature of ex-colonies, that is the so-called

by people coming from ex-colonies or whose lives had to do with the history of colonisation,

this literature decentralizes the power of language. Colonised people who are forced to use

‘risk’

the colonisers’ language run the of internalising their perspectives, the view of the

dominant group. The effects on the individual are pathological. A language is a means by

which people make sense of the world and understand themselves. The imposition of the

English language has erased the memories of pre-colonial cultures. Language installs the

power of the dominance of the West. But languages also become a weapon of struggle.

Even if it manifests and expresses the dominance of the empire, conveying a Eurocentric

vision of the world, it can become a very important weapon against the empire in the hands

of colonised people. The revolution and rebellion of colonised people takes place in and

though language. Post-colonial writers and critics are able to write and speak in English. So,

they denounce the values of the colonisers and their imperialist ideology. In other words,

the post-colonial margins write back at the post-imperial centre. This is a way of challenging

and subverting the imperial centre.

Cambridge’s narrative

Cambridge’s mastering of English, jeopardises rational boundaries and problematises

them. Cambridge’s life story occupies the central position between the first and the second

chapters. This is a paradox because he does not belong to the centre but to the margins. It

narratives. It opens and closes with the words: “Pardon

intrudes into two Euro-dominated lines.”

the liberty I take in the burdening myself with these hasty (133, 167). The ideas of

marginality and centrality are presented in order to be questioned. Cambridge’s focal

position is also reflected in the title. It is as if Cambridge apologies for his intrude into the

European history. He recounts his life, his childhood in the Africa where he grows up as

Olumide. He is kidnapped and carried off to the coast, survives the Middle Passage and is

immediately returned to England where he serves as “Black (Thomas) in a rich man’s

Tom”

household. Here he comes into contact with the Christian faith and has himself baptized as

“David and marries a white servant. Freed after the death of his master and

Henderson”

he receives an unexpected inheritance from his master and then decides to set out to do

missionary work in Africa. What Ph