Interpreting New Literary Texts: Things Fall Apart, A House for Mr. Biswas and Midnight’s
Children
Dr. Prakash Chandra Pradhan
Professor
Department of English
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Abstract:
After the end of the Empire during the 1940s/1950s, the mainstream
English literature lost its glory and therefore needed revitalization. The
demise of the Empire helped in quickening expansion and revitalization of
mainstream English literature because of emergence of a number of new
literatures across the globe. Postcolonialism is instrumental in the emergence
of new literatures. We will therefore discuss its conceptualization. Both
thematic and aesthetic features in new literatures in reference to Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, V. S.
Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas, and
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children will
also be examined. The paper will conclude with the argument that “New
Literatures in English” have enriched the mainstream English literature in
revitalizing and expanding it.
Keywords: Postcolonialism; Empire; Decolonisation;
Neo-colonialism; English; Myth; Colonialism; Plurality; Multiculturalism
The mainstream English literature lost its glory in the1940s/1950s for
which it needed its revitalization and freshness. The progressive decline of
imperial influence of Great Britain on her former colonies after their
independence resulted in emergence of a number of new literatures in English
language in these independent nations. The revolutionary movement of
postcolonialism is the root cause of such a phenomenon in the world history and
literature. Postcolonialism constitutes a system of knowledge that resists
irrelevance of supremacy and dominance of western epistemology. It emphasizes
an alternative systems of knowledge for understanding native cultures and
systems. The writers of New Literatures expose western hypocrisy and exploitation
during colonialism. This paper in reference to Things Fall Apart, A House
for Mr. Biswas and Midnight’s Children
discusses certain relevant issues during colonialism/postcolonialism
related to Nigeria, West Indies and Indian subcontinent.
I
Several countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America had been the
colonies of the British imperial power before the 2nd half of the 20th
century. Also in Australia and Canada, the English speaking people were either
settlers or invaders. These colonies had therefore been associated with the
English language. After liberation of these countries, many writers produced
literature in English. English language has therefore a colonial context in
these countries. It has historical, political and imperial nuances. However the
expression “New Literatures in English” does not refer to these imperial
nuances though the terminologies like Commonwealth Literature and Postcolonial
Literature definitely evoke the historical and political associations to
colonialism. “New Literatures” refer to any literature written in the English
language from any corner of the world without evoking the colonial context. However
the New literatures in English deal with inhuman perspectives of imperialism.
It is therefore a literature having distinctive qualities, distinguished from
the traditional mainstream English Literature. There had been significant
decline in mainstream English literature after the high peak of modernist
literature in the first half of the 20th century.
Decolonisation across
the world affected the disappearance of the feudal world of leisurely reading
for which literature needed revitalisation and regeneration. Changes in the
conditions of life demanded from literature to have new sources for its
sustenance and survival. New challenges for the new nations in the sphere of
politics, culture and economy are enormous for which literature required
expansion with new horizons by amalgamating various burning issues with new
themes and techniques. The traditional English literature had no potentiality to
deal with these new forces of change amidst a new cultural climate. The great
modernist writers in English literature such as Conrad, Lawrence, Yeats, Eliot,
Joyce, Woolf and many others were either no more or had less ability in dealing
with the emergent issues after liberation of the former colonies of Imperial
England, such as Canada (1946), India (1947),Nigeria (1960), Uganda (1962),
Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Kenya (1967) and so on. However the English
language, which had been transplanted in the former colonies during
colonialism, started to reinvigorate English literature through its creative
use by the writers of the liberated countries. They regenerated England and
English literature with new vigour and energy. Powerful winds of change and Transnational
flow of literary currents reshaped the decaying literature. By adopting new
means of translation and experimentation by Samuel Beckett (England), Saul
Bellow (America), Patrick White (Australia) and Gunter Grass (Germany), English
literature was revitalised through interconnections and interrelations.
There had been
continuous disregard for recognition of a monolithic corpus of English
literature after decolonisation. The new works from the new nations have
diverse ethos of anxieties and aspirations, fears and joys making English
literature vibrant and dynamic. Some of the new literature writers including
Salman Rushdie felt that new literatures in English are decentred. Globalism
and internationalism had influenced the writers, such as Albert Camus, Samuel
Beckett, Gunter Grass, and Doris Lessing considerably. Both England and English
literature needed to shake off the smugness for their revitalization. New
theories in literature, new media of film and internet as well as acute
consciousness of history in the 1980s/1990s brought revolutionary changes in
the trends of literature in England and the newly liberated nations. Literature
and history enriched each other because literature has the ability to absorb
history and transform it into a new creative form. It is really a significant
development because fresh currents joined the mainstream English literature and
transformed it into a new model. English literature was transformed into a new
entity, both international and transnational. Assimilating currents, crosscurrents,
new forces and energies from all over the world, it enjoyed a dignified status
in the name of New Literatures in English.
Bill Ashcroft et al in
their book The Empire Writes Back
discuss both the mainstream English literature and other varieties of
literatures in English emerging from the colonies/former colonies. They
distinguish between “English literature” and “english literatures”, the small
“e” for new literatures in English and reserving capital “E” for traditional
mainstream English literature. Literature written in English by the writers
living in the countries belonging to Commonwealth is also known as Commonwealth
literature. This term has however associations of imperialism as the
terminology traces back to the origin of
“The Commonwealth of Nations” in 1926
consisting of the British and independent countries, formerly part of the
British Empire. English language was implanted in Asia as a historical
necessity. It could however be used to exchange ideas between east and west,
overcoming the geographical barriers and as a base for sharing world
consciousness.. The term “postcolonial” refers to post-independence literature
of a country though it can also include all literatures written consequent upon
the encounter between the colonizer and the colonized. Bill Ashcroft et al
therefore in The Empire Writes Back
write:
We use the term ‘post-colonial’, however, to
cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of
colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of
pre-occupations throughout the historical process initiated by European
imperial aggression. (2)
The three terminologies such as postcolonial literature, commonwealth
literature and New literatures in English cannot be completely delinked. The
New literatures across the globe have certain common features: colonial past
and the struggle for freedom, celebration of freedom, a new sense of identity
and consciousness of nationality and patriotic spirit, story of industrial development,
and broken syntax of English language. These literatures have also distinctive
qualities because they are the products of different geographical, ethnic,
cultural and religious differences. Initially these literatures are more or
less imitative. The developed countries were almost in their last phase for
which imitation in the initial stage results in creative renaissance pointing
to new directions, developments and experiments. These new turns and
developments went a long way to enrich the mainstream English literature.
Imitation has certain positive quality as it resulted in a new awareness of
their own culture and tradition thereby enriching the mainstream literature and
widening the frontiers of English literature. Geographical and national boundaries
might be restrictive. However, literature delineates the story of human joy and
suffering despite the fact that various writers of different geographical
locations and cultures write in their own ways and means with their distinctive
backgrounds.
Postcolonialism is
central to understand new literary texts. It suggests an alternative culture,
an alternative epistemology or system of knowledge. Challenging the
“institutionalized Knowledge Corporation” (Young 2006: 18) of the west, it
begins from its own knowledge system with the premise that the westerners must
take such other knowledge systems and other perspectives as seriously as those
of the west. Such knowledge can only be acquired when one is to look at the
world not from above, but from below. Claiming the rights of all people on the
earth to the same material as well as cultural wellbeing through their
emancipation and empowerment, postcolonialism shifts its emphasis on the
marginal sections in the society.
Subverting the existing order, it establishes equitable relations among
peoples across the world. It therefore destabilizes the centre-margin
equilibrium. The centre-margin paradox is central to most of the new literary
texts. Drawing on the insights and precision from various postcolonial theorists
and activists, such as Fanon, Said, Spivak, Bhabha, Hall, Foucault, Althusser,
Ahmed, Jameson, Bill et al, Gramsci and many others, new literary texts can be
interpreted usefully in the context of marginality, cultural identity and
deconstruction of history.
Unlike ancient Empires,
the European colonialism that started in the 16th century in Asia,
Africa and America was more ruthless and organised in exploiting both human and
material resources thereby ruining the economies of the colonized countries
(Loomba 8). Sartre therefore condemns the European colonists as monsters and
blood-suckers. They were racial, filthy and hypocritical. The capitalist agenda
was meant for prosperity of Europe and North America, and destruction of
economies of the colonies. The cheap but immense human labour of the colonies
was utilised for industrial growth of the Empires. Decolonisation ended
political Imperialism by the grant of political independence. Economic
Imperialism however continued in an independent country through market control
and intervention in her economic issues. Colonialism/neo-colonialism is thus
guilty of cultural arrogance and psychological torture (‘Preface’ by Sartre in The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon:
lviii- lx). New literary texts bring out these
colonial/postcolonial/neo-colonial issues by destabilizing the western ideas
and their hegemonic interventions on native people and their cultures thereby
ruining their economies considerably. Let us now take three seminal new
literary texts, namely Things Fall Apart,
A House for Mr. Biswas and Midnight’s Children by Achebe, Naipaul and Rushdie respectively to understand
the colonial/postcolonial situations in Nigeria, West Indies and the Indian
subcontinent.
II
Chinua Achebe has written novels and critical essays in English on Igbo
culture, deeply rooted in oral tradition. He emphasizes an African identity in
his writings. He achieves his social responsibility by using myths, rituals,
proverbs and Igbo words loaded with cultural nuances. He has synthesized the
narrative technique of an oral tradition with sophisticated technique of
English novel. Things Fall Apart [1958],
written in rich African tradition, represents the Igbo culture that fell apart
because of colonial intervention and internal contradictions in the culture. This
novel has been set in traditional Nigerian villages of Umuofia, Mbaino, and
Mbanta. Society is more important than individuals in Igbo culture. Okonkwo’s
temperamental weakness, his short temper and failure are rooted in himself. The
social and political institutions of the traditional society emphasize the
primacy of the community over the individual. Achebe has tried to raise African
consciousness by portraying authentic characters in a typical African setting.
Through them, he has projected an African point of view critiquing a
Eurocentric perception of Africa.
In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo
illustrates hopes and aspirations, fears and frustrations of Africa. His
reactions are suggestive and symbolic. His tragic doom has a significant impact
on the entire mankind. The dominant mood in African literature is the
consciousness of being black. This consciousness brings the black people to
come together, and keeps all of them in a typical relationship with the White
world. This is a source of inspiration for African writers to write about their
roots. They protest against brutality of colonialism and dogmatism of its
cultural arrogance. They also affirm natural and original values of Africans. They
assert that black men are in no way inferior to them. The objective of the
African writers is to work towards a better Africa and establish their identity
as a distinctive culture.
Things
Fall Apart illustrates how
Igbo society has been disintegrated; the cementing force of the social fabric
has been dismantled. The outside colonial forces are not merely responsible in
this venture. The internal contradictions within it are equally responsible for
the society to fall apart. To understand this situation, it is imperative to
read the novel very closely - its setting, characters, myths, rituals and
festivals, colonial encounter, narrative strategies, use of culturally loaded
Igbo words and social structure. Part I deals with Igbo society with all its
myths, legends, beliefs, customs, superstitions and taboos which are deeply
rooted in the consciousness of the people. They reflect the cultural and social
patterns of Igbo people and their primordial qualities. Achebe is primarily
concerned with retrieving the history of his race from the imperial deniers of
the past. He is interested in bringing out the social, political and religious
concerns of the Igbo world. He has a strong reaction against the inaccurate
depictions of Africa and Africans by the Western writers. Things Fall Apart depicts the resistance of the natives against the
cultural imperialism of the White men. It portrays the falling apart of a
community primarily due to the conflict between the Christian Missionaries and
Igbo socio-cultural-religious systems in Nigeria, depicted in Part II and Part
III.
Igbo world is bound by centuries-old laws of right and wrong, good and
evil. Their close harmony with nature and respect for seasonal changes with
religious fervour enable them to face both the best and the worst. Seasonal changes,
myths and belief systems compel them to perform certain rites and rituals which
shape their consciousness. Their social systems and cultural practices are
governed by their beliefs and superstitions. They have also a judicial system
carried out through a village council to settle disputes and punish the
offenders. The daily lives of these people are regulated by the belief in gods
and goddesses whose supremacy and might they dare not challenge, lest they will
invite their wrath. Igbos also emphasize the ancestral worship and respect for
the old people. Achebe gives primary importance to the communal life. In the
case of a clash between the individual interest and the interest of the
community, the individual has to forfeit his claim. That is why Okonkwo,
despite being a very powerful person, is subordinate to the community during
his crises. No doubt, the European Missionaries and bureaucrats are immensely
responsible for the Igbo community to fall apart. The society is also ruined
because of the tragic obstinacy of Okonkwo and ruthlessness of the tribal
society. Ruthless laws, ill treatment to women and children, the custom of
discarding new-born twins and irrational belief systems made the society weaker
and weaker. It lost its credibility as it could not adjust to the
circumstantial changes. Okonkwo is a kind of African everyman. He is a staunch
champion of Igbo tradition. In his tragic fall, we witness the disintegration
and fall of an ancient society. He is exceptionally a brave man in every sense.
During his youth he won so many battles and titles. He has had five heads
severed. A man of titles, he has large acres of land for which he can afford
many wives and children. He has so many barns. All these indicate his status in
the society.
Okonkwo loses his essence after participating in the murder of
Ikemefuna, who is calling him father. The oldest man of the village, Ezeudu,
persuades him not to participate in the boy’s murder. He doesn’t listen. Even
his friend, Obeirika, admonishes him after it. His chi goes against him however when he inadvertently kills the 16
year old son of Ezeudu in the procession of his death ritual. For this female
crime he is banished for seven years from his village. During the banishment,
he lives in his mother’s land in his maternal uncle’s house, and during this
period, the Missionaries have encroached upon the native systems toppling them.
Even after his return, he feels helpless before the sophisticated bureaucrats
of colonial masters. Through Okonkwo’s life from his birth to tragic suicide,
Achebe portrays the intricacies of the Igbo culture. The author has however,
not romanticised his achievements. Achebe shows how mere bravery and strength
of Okonkwo can’t save him as he has undermined flexibility and open-mindedness.
His obsessive hatred towards White men who, he fears, will tear his culture
apart, brings his downfall. Achebe understood well that imperial culture,
language and literature marginalized native people’s literature, culture and
language. He therefore evolved a counter discourse through innovation and
experimentation by innovative fictional techniques to portray his culture in
the best possible manner. Achebe has a political motive by writing in English.
He has loaded his writing with Igbo words and proverbs to emphasize the Igbo
cultural aspects. The political orientations have been deliberately designed to
counteract western/hegemonic domination. Achebe is challenging the European
master narrative and offering an alternative, both in terms of the metaphysical
system of his culture and also the narrative strategies he has employed to
represent his culture and tradition.
Things
Fall Apart draws on a rich
source of Igbo customs, beliefs, myths, legends, rites and proverbs. All these
are woven into the form and structure of the novel both implicitly and
explicitly to shape life and consciousness of the people. Achebe uses native
proverbs to lend authenticity to the language he employs. He uses short crisp
sentences to narrate stories within stories, typical of his people’s cultural
consciousness. All of them lend authenticity to his use of language, and lends
the novel a regional flavour. That is how he has decolonized his use of English
language and transformed it into english. The novel is a site for binary
oppositions, such as civilization and savagery, white and black, rationality
and sensuality, modern and traditional, individual and community. Achebe
however remarkably accommodates these binary oppositions, and holds them in
artistic balance.
The syntax and the rhythm of orality have been combined with the linear
narrative structure of the European fiction thereby lending the novel with an
interesting and effective style. From the anthropological perspective, the
novel represents a clash of religions - the Christian and the Pagan. It is
observed that an African world-view that has served the communities for
centuries seems to have a defeat. From geo-historical viewpoint, it is seen
that the increasing British hegemony and acculturation of the African tribes by
the British reflect the arrogant advance of European culture over the African
culture that had been pristine and innocent. The novel also establishes the
clash of ideologies. The conflict is between two value systems - one traditional
and socio-religious, and the other modern, racial-evangelical. The hidden
agenda is the systematic demolition of the African psyche and African ethos.
The novel tells us the story of an Igbo community, already rotten with internal
tensions which centre round the psychological and social struggle of the
protagonist to compensate for the perceived failure of his father, Unoka, the
unsuccessful musician from economic standpoint.
The tragic fall of Okonkwo has been due to a number of factors including
his own character, his clash with the values of his society which he pursues
with excessive vigour and zeal, and the significant changes in the society
brought about by the colonisers. Umuofia society is a complex and evolving
entity with its own agendas and internal contradictions. Interaction with the
mysterious new forces of the White man produced a volatile and irresistible set
of changes. These changes are not entirely negative. Okonkwo’s maternal uncle
Uchendu suggests that the aggressiveness of the clan contradicts the earlier
peaceful co-existence. The society has already been divided for which it can’t
respond collectively against the external forces. Changes had already taken
place in the society prior to the arrival of White man. However, the
protagonist is too rigid to change himself as he is not in a position to
understand this change in his native land because of his overindulgence and
rigidity. He therefore emerges as a representative of his culture, possessing
the best of the qualities glorified by that culture - valour, fearlessness and
physical power. The tragic flaw in his character is the fear of being
considered as weak and feminine. His consciousness of being a mighty man, and
his fear and accidental killing of a clansman conspire against him and
therefore his chi banishes him for
seven years from his village. After his return, he finds that his native
clansmen have turned into feminine, and are no more able to fight for their
race. His native trait of impulsiveness and his awareness of physical prowess
prompt him to kill the court messenger, and thereafter he commits suicide
because he now feels that the community no more believes in action. His death
by suicide raises his grandeur because he has great faith in his own dignity
and the values of his community.
Naipaul destabilizes the centre-margin dichotomy of
colonial/postcolonial situations. A House
for Mr. Biswas delineates the suppressed histories of post-war human
predicament. The protagonist Mohun Biswas, an existentialist, challenges the false,
degraded, irrational value systems of Tulsidom in Hanuman House. Tulsidom is a
kind of imperialistic outfit, a microcosm of colonialism, where the
marginalised are exploited for their sustenance. The Empire exploits both the
human as well as the natural resources of a colony. So also in Tulsi
imperialism, the sons-in-law were exploited for the expansion of Tulsi Estate.
They were to put up hard labour to meet their bread and butter. They had
neither freedom nor any identity. More particularly, the marginalization of Mr.
Biswas has been portrayed vividly. Married to Shama, the youngest daughter of
Tulsi clan, Mr. Biswas rebels, and challenges the imperialistic and irrelevant
Tulsi ideologies.
A House
for Mr. Biswas foregrounds the
previously devalued colonial or colonized culture and its complexities. Set in
Trinidad in 1940s, it portrays the colonial situation of Trinidad. Mohun Biswas
challenges the imperial paradigm of Tulsis, their conservative Hindu ideas and
ideology. He alone fights against the oppressions of the Tulsis on the
marginalised. He wants to get himself liberated from the narrow circle of
ideologies of Hindu cultural system and wishes to assert his identity. A
staunch rebel, Mr. Biswas, revolts against the stereotype, irrelevant ideologies
of Hanuman House, a colonial outfit, even though he is completely dependent on
this tyrannical organisation for his family’s survival.
In the first part of the novel, there is focus on the futility of his
rebellion. However, such a rebellion is meaningless for those who are almost
slaves, and without any means of self-support. Under such circumstances Mr.
Biswas can only show his resentment for them upon whom he is dependent. On the
other hand, Shama is closely attached to the Tulsi family. She has moulded
herself in conformity with the Tulsi empirical system. Hanuman House represents
a feudal colonial set-up where loyal people who conform to its regulations, are
enjoying certain privileges; for example, Hari, one of the sons-in-law, becomes
a family priest. In the imperialistic outfit, Mrs. Tulsi, Mr. Seth and the two
sons are the colonisers, and all other extended family members are treated as
colonised since all of them are surviving on food, clothing and shelter
provided by Tulsis. Mr. Biswas is detached from the decadent ethos of the
Hindus in Trinidad. In his childhood he has become fatherless. All his actions
are motivated by the confrontation between his sense of freedom and sense of
insecurity. Society plays the role of a constant hostile fate against his life.
Facing the complex situations of life from an early stage, he has been evolving
as an individual of a sharpening character. Bruce King’s comments are
noteworthy in this context:
Biswas’s story,
both representative of the Trinidadian Asian Indian, could be put together from
aspects of his life and the lives of those to whom he was related by birth and
marriage. Yet no one single character in the novel can be said to be typical of
the Trinidadian Indian. (1993:41)
Midnight’s Children, a postcolonial and post-modern text, has new
characteristics both in theme and technique: self-conscious narration, use of
technical language, description of a long list of words to create either a
busy/barren world, and use of broken/informal English. In the very first
paragraph, the author’s intrusion is evident. By creating a magic realistic
atmosphere combining fantasy and realism, Rushdie is able to blur the
distinction between fantasy and reality. He uses fantasy as a subversive
narrative strategy to create an alternative reality. His self-conscious
intrusion into the story through informal language erases the distinctions
usually found between the real and the fictional world. The marginalised
characters take a central position as their tragic situations are given
prominence in the description thereby affecting a surreal world of instability
that seems to eliminate the distinction between reality and fictionality.
Rushdie has blended various styles and different varieties of language to place
his narrative in the oral tradition. To decolonise the narrative, he mixes
different kinds of style and language in the very first paragraph. Constantly
arguing with himself in relation to his method of story-telling in the very
first paragraph he has recourse to oral tradition in his narrative. The typical
use of colloquial expressions, such as “No, that won’t do…” and “Once upon a
time….” (Midnight’s Children 9)
conform to oral tradition of folktales. Depending on his needs, Rushdie shifts
his narrative style suddenly to a formal one as we observe the standard formal
style towards the end of the paragraph. It is interesting to mark that his
prose style encompasses the vast material with extended sentences, use of colon
for emphasis and syntactical variation.
Rushdie has depicted
the postcolonial disorder in the Indian subcontinent focusing on the
inefficacy, corruption, intellectual bankruptcy, poor governance and divisive
politics. The main objective of the bureaucrats and politicians is to look into
their self-interest rather than taking the subcontinent in the path of economic
progress. Though the situations in the three locations such as India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh are different, the specific postcolonial disorder has been due
to disharmony among the people of various religions, communities, language
differences and cultural variations. Pakistan is a pure country as the
administrators run the modern nation following the medieval religious ideals of
Islam. Indian rulers are not capable of managing the vast nation with its
multiple social, political, linguistic, religious and cultural issues with
insightful administrative ingenuity.
India is to be understood as a nation of plurality rather than a nation
of a single ideology or culture or religion. Illegitimacy, impurity, hybridity
and plurality have to be understood in the proper perspective. To create an
alternative reality, Rushdie follows a subversive technique of playfulness,
comicality, trivialization and magic realism. Midnight’s Children delves deep into Indian psyche, and explores
rich reservoir of ancient indigenous resources like epic, folklore, myths and
rituals. Saleem Sinai’s illegitimacy is an indicator towards Indian plurality,
and his large nose as well as Shiva’s big knees symbolically represent India’
multiculturalism. Knowledge of the archetypal figure of Ganesh, his elephantine
nose and ears exemplify the typical Indian mind-sets, a desire for the whole:
“I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you’ll
have to swallow the lot as well. Consumed multitudes are jostling and shoving
inside me; and guided only by the memory of a large bed sheet with roughly
circular hole…” (8-9). New Literature writers in English in India show their
concern for community, nation and society. Nation is fictionalized, combining
the ideas of nation and history. Saleem, the narrator and Padma, the narratee,
can be likened to Rishis narrating
stories to kings.
III
The texts refer to multiple issues relevant to various socio-cultural,
political and economic concerns. Achebe’s emphasis to raise an African consciousness
in Things Fall Apart evidences his
involvement for a deep-rooted culture and native cultural identity. Naipaul
focuses on disintegration of a rotten Hindu cultural system because of its
dissociation from the modern ethos of Hinduism and its connection with
irrelevant ethos of other communities and religions through a seepage in
Hanuman House. Rushdie emphasises the disintegration of the Indian subcontinent
and postcolonial disorder as the leaders fail intellectually, and are unable to
realize the true pluralistic set-up.
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