Postcolonial Literature - Essay Example

Idea proposalPostcolonial texts include literary writings that react to the intellectual discourse of the manner in which Europe colonized the Pacific, Asia, Middle East and Africa, among other places (Nayar 3). Postcolonial text deals with the issues and ramifications of decolonization of nations, particularly the cultural and political reliance on the previously subjugated colonial people. Further, it also covers the critiques of and concerning postcolonial texts, the undertones that communicate, carry and rationalize colonialism and racism.

However, majority of the modern forms of postcolonial texts develop intellectual and literary critiques of postcolonial discourse through endeavoring to assimilate post-colonialism and the literary expressions associated with them.There are numerous challenging questions that can be associated with postcolonial texts that should be addressed in a detailed and comprehensive manner. Majority of post-colonial literature addresses the colonial interactions between the Europeans and those whose who were colonized, therefore, using the term postcolonial is not entirely accurate since most of the texts in the postcolonial literature refer to issues that occurred prior to independence.

Further, the colonized people from various parts of the globe have had extremely different experiences colonization, therefore, it may not be a good idea to put all the writers and texts in one category, since there are numerous similarities and differences in regards to culture, linguistics as well as politics.The texts that are associated with settler colonies like Australia are usually seen as postcolonial texts, however, it is difficult to see any similarity between the work that is done by a white Australian writer and that which is done by a writer from south Asia or Africa.

Additionally, there is the question of whether American texts should be considered postcolonial since the US at one time was a British colony. Another issue entails what to make of the fact that the writers of postcolonial texts who get majority of the attention are those who do their work in their colonial languages like French and English, and this sort of implies that colonial cultures and languages are still being given more privilege than the indigenous languages and culture. Another issue is the fact that postcolonial writers who are male received comparatively more attention compared to female writers, where the male writers typically challenge colonialism in their works, which leaves gender in a position where it has to deal with inequality as a problem.

Lastly, postcolonial literature should be assessed in a detailed manner to identify how radical it is, and understand whether postcolonial writers use western genres, such as novels, and forms, and merely improving on them without creating changes to the forms. This creates a situation where if the writers really wish to challenge colonial culture, they have to decide whether they should find totally newer forms and approaches to writing. The world in currently in a globalization age and the difference and similarities between globalization and colonization should be identified to confirm whether globalization is colonialism’s legacy.

This create another question as to whether the current writers are supposed to write about globalization in ways that differ from the manner in which they wrote about colonialism. Work citedNayar, Pramod K. Postcolonial Literature. Delhi, India: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print.