Postcolonial Writings of George Orwell and Derek Walcott

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Postcolonial Writings ofGeorge Orwelland Derek
Walcott
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Postcolonial Literature

• Literature by or about formerly colonized
  populations
• Examines the complex legacy of imperialism
• Gives a voice to indigenous people
  disenfranchised and marginalized by imperial power

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Orwell Biographical Overview

• Born Eric Blair in India (1903) but educated in
  England
• 1922returned to India to join Imperial Police of
  Burma

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Biographical Overview

• Imperialist experience made him recognize the
  abuses of British imperialism
• 1927returned to Europe determined to resist
  despotism
• Worked to alleviate conditions of poor and resist
  fascism
• Lived as street tramp
• Fought in Spanish Civil War (1937)
• Broadcast for the BBC in World War II

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Biographical Overview

• Satirized Stalins communist regime in Animal
  Farm
• Warned against a totalitarian future (Big
  Brother) for Britain in 1984
• Died of tuberculosis in 1950

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Orwell Central Artistic Concepts

• Brutally honest political satire against
  totalitarianism
• Contempt for political ideologies and recognition
  of their potential for oppression
• Recognized languages power as a tool of
  oppression

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Shooting An Elephant p. 2457

• Critiques imperialism from the imperialists
  perspective
• Reveals the real motives for which despotic
  governments act (p. 2458)
• Colonizers as well as colonized people become
  victims of imperial policy (p. 2459-60)
• Shooting the elephant becomes a metaphor for
  colonial violence

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Walcott Biographical Overview

• Born on Caribbean island St. Lucia, part of
  British West Indies (gained independence in 1979)
• Product of Caribbeans hybrid cultureFrench,
  British, Indian, African
• Mixed ethnic backgrounddescended from both white
  colonialists and African slaves
• Won Nobel Prize for Literature (1992)

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Walcott Central Artistic Concepts

• Cultural schizophrenia and psychic fragmentation
• Search for identity in a fragmented
  postcolonial/postmodern culture
• Struggle to reconcile European and Caribbean
  cultures

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A Far Cry from Africa p. 2580

• Imagery suggests horror at the violence of both
  imperialists and colonized people (stanzas 1 2)
• Colonialism inspires a legacy of violence
• Ambivalent response to his divided heritage as a
  colonial subject (lines 25-33)