Books, as Virginia Woolf wrote, are ‘mirrors of the soul’[1], reflecting people and their experiences, yet orthodoxies of literature dictate narrow boundaries around who is reflected and how. The canon is inundated with literature written about white people, from a white perspective, leaving little room for non-white experiences. This is the literary manifestation of the oppression endured by colonised people, thus postcolonial literature seeks to challenge orthodoxies by reflecting them more accurately. Some postcolonial works, such as Aime Césaire’s Une Tempête, shift focus within a canonical text to colonised characters, challenging the way in which oppressed people are usually represented. Others, such as Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, give time and legitimacy to stories of black women, defying norms of who is represented. Finally, some postcolonial literature rejects the idea of representation altogether, as Benjamin Zephaniah does in Knowing Me.

            Postcolonial literature challenges orthodoxies by revisiting canonical texts from a new perspective. Aime Césaire’s Une Tempête take the framework of a canonical text and reshapes, broadening audiences’ understanding of oppressed groups. Césaire rewrites Shakespeare’s The Tempest, adopting its form, characters, and a similar title, which translates to ‘A Tempest’. By replacing the title’s definite article ‘the’ with the indefinite ‘a’, Césaire implies that literary works are subjective iterations of a story, not the definitive versions. He explores this further through Caliban, a slave to Prospero, who stole Caliban’s island. Caliban’s experiences mirror those of colonised people, aligning him with such oppression. Césaire expresses Caliban’s humanity, ending with his shouts of ‘FREEDOM HI-DAY! FREEDOM HI-DAY!’[2], in place of Prospero’s monologue. Here, Césaire repeats the verb ‘freedom’, seen throughout the play in Caliban’s cry for ‘(shouting) Freedom Now!’[3] and declaration that ‘[he’s] interested in being free! Free, you hear!’[4]. In conjunction with the expressive stage directions and punctuation, the repetition reminds us that Caliban is a person, desiring basic liberties. In this way, Césaire invokes sympathy for Caliban, allowing him an emotional depth and complexity that Shakespeare excludes, through which audiences can connect to him. Additionally, by concluding Une Tempête with a declaration of the colonised character’s humanity, Césaire suggests that the play is framed around Caliban, and that this shift in focus allows a nuanced understanding of him. In doing so, he challenges the orthodoxies in perspective that limit Shakespeare’s portrayal of Caliban. Césaire displays the benefits of such a shift, providing a more empathetic understanding of native people by giving them attention and depth within a narrative that previously degraded them. This creates an unorthodox, yet truthful depiction that challenges European norms.

            Césaire’s portrayal of Caliban also challenges orthodoxies by conveying the subjectivity of the dominant view, and role of language in maintaining it. He undermines the notion of one definitive perspective by presenting the same character in a more accessible way, inviting audiences to consider the disparity between the two depictions. Césaire demonstrates how easily an author’s biases can colour the conclusions drawn from a narrative, its characters, and about their real-world counterparts by extension. This is emphasised by the text’s explicit reference to the relationship between language and identity, a continuation of Shakespeare’s exploration of this idea. It is discussed, for example, when Caliban says ‘Uhuru!’[5], and Prospero replies ‘back to your native language again. I’ve already told you, I don’t like it’.[6] Here, inclusion of the Swahili word ‘uhuru’, (meaning freedom) is a recognition of alternative modes of expression. Prospero’s negative reaction displays the danger these alternatives pose to his power, as they undermine his domination of the narrative. The playwright reminds us that European languages, whilst forced on colonised populations, are not the default, and neither is the perspective of the people who use them. Therefore, after subverting a canonical text to challenge the sanctity of the orthodoxies it represents, Césaire draws our attention to the role of language in perpetuating these norms. This conveys that the literary canon’s default perspective is arbitrary, and thus the orthodoxies it entails should be challenged. Moreover, Césaire exposes the existence of oppression in the literary landscape, and that it must be addressed here as well as in the outside world.

            Some postcolonial literature, rather than challenging orthodoxies in representation through existing characters, challenge the subject matter of the canon as a whole. These works, such as Bernadine Evaristo’s polyphonic novel Girl, Woman, Other, give attention and importance to stories suppressed by colonialism. Its divergence is reflected in its focus on black, British women, and the experimental form of Evaristo’s prose, which eschews European convention for a less restricted expression of narrative. This is evident in chapter 1’s Amma Bonsu, a queer, black, female playwright whose identity and experience Evaristo explores through her clothing. This includes ‘patterned harem pants’,[7] ‘peroxide dreadlocks’ [8]and the ‘silver hoop earrings, chunky African bangles and pink lipstick [that] are her perennial signature style’[9]. The volume of adjectives here highlights Evaristo’s purposeful specificity, suggesting a desire to fully realise a character rarely explored in literature. Furthermore, each detail represents an element of Amma’s identity, ‘chunky African bangles’ indicating her heritage, ‘silver hoop earrings’ a symbol of modern black culture, and ‘pink lipstick’ an image of western femininity. Evaristo draws attention to the multitudinous aspects of Amma, conveying the intricacy of this character who represents marginalised demographics. Concentrating on Amma’s identity challenges colonial standards of importance and worth by interrogating and celebrating a black, female character’s life with the same respect given to white, male protagonists of celebrated literary classics. Moreover, Evaristo recounts Amma’s play, ‘The Last Amazon of Dahomey’[10], the story of Nawi, ‘a vulnerable teenage bride’ [11]who is ‘forced to join [the king’s] female combat troops’[12] and becomes a ‘legendary Amazon general’[13]. This adds another unorthodox story, but also, as ‘every company [Amma] sent it to turned it down’[14], engages with the idea of challenging homogeneity in literature, self-referentially, within the text.

            Evaristo challenges orthodoxies of subject matter by representing the experiences of marginalised people, but also by using them as mouthpieces to express universal human experiences. Amma’s style is said to have ‘evolved from the cliched denim dungarees, Che Guevara beret’[15] and ‘PLO scarf’[16]. Evaristo’s inclusion of the ‘Che Guevara Beret’ and ‘PLO scarf’ gives insight into Amma’s past image of herself, as introduction to that of her current self. By introducing these details with the verb ‘cliched’, Evaristo invokes a sense of commonality, not only in the stereotypical nature of Amma’s earlier choices, but also in that becoming a truer, more individual version of yourself is universal. Thus, Evaristo introduces readers to a character with an identity uniquely shaped by their black, female experience, whilst revealing this to include universal human experiences as well. Evaristo makes this explicit by describing that adverts ‘told her generation [smoking] would make them appear grown-up, glamorous, powerful, clever, desirable and above all, cool / no one told them it would actually make them dead.’[17] The disparity between the first, long description, and the bluntness of the adjective ‘dead’, emphasises the contrast between smoking’s various connotations. This conveys how the meaning of cultural symbols varies over time, transforming the identities drawn from them, a change that the noun ‘generation’ confirms is itself universal. The possessive pronoun ‘her’, reminds us that this experience is felt as much by Amma as it would be any white protagonist. Therefore, by expressing universal experiences through stories of people from neglected groups, Evaristo challenges norms of whom can be the voice of human experience, and the depth that can be explored in marginalised people’s stories.

            Whilst Césaire and Evaristo aim to challenge orthodoxies in the representation of colonised people, other postcolonial authors, such as Benjamin Zephaniah, challenge the idea of representation itself. In his poem Knowing Me, Zephaniah approaches the grouping of people, based on signifiers like race, as a colonial practice, and seeks to dismantle this structure. He invokes this in his confession that ‘I have never found the need/ to … sit with fellow poets exorcising ghosts’[18], which can be interpreted as disinterest in exploring his own past for others’ sake, and in interrogating and amplifying canonical authors, who haunt present day storytelling like ‘ghosts’. This suggests that Zephaniah wants to create something independent of past standards.  He does so by demonstrating the absurdity of identity, and the categorization of people to dictate it, by contrasting groups and individuals. He begins the poem with ‘according to the experts’[19], the external officiality of the phrase being counterintuitive to the introspective title. This ironic contrast is replicated in the lines ‘I’m … not playing the alienation game’[20]. There is a disparity between the noun ‘alienation’, connoting solitude and discomfort, and the noun ‘games’, connoting congregation and joy. This oxymoron exposes the inconsistency at the core of the idea of identity; that it is an expression of a person’s individuality derived from membership of a group. The phrase ‘too unfrustrated’ that follows, being an illogical amplification of absence, adds to the sense of impossibility. By repeatedly highlighting conflict in the concept of identity, Zephaniah suggests that an individual cannot be defined by belonging to a group and remain an individual. This opposes not only orthodoxies in literature that degrade people due to membership of ethnic groups, but also the idea, suggested in other postcolonial works, that this can be rectified by fairer representation. Zephaniah suggests that, instead of regarding people as representatives of factions, we see them as unique individuals, a challenge to norms of categorization and representation in literature that mirror colonial ideas.

            Zephaniah challenges these orthodoxies of identity further by portraying them as unnecessary, presenting a person who is self-assured without racial categorisation. Lines such as ‘I don’t feel lost’[21] and ‘I am not half a poet shivering in the cold’[22], as well as the refrain ‘I don’t have an identity crisis’[23], are blunt declarations of this fact. The simplicity of the register here, and the repetition of the first-person pronoun ‘I’, convey an explicit self-awareness of the speaker’s individuality. Furthermore, by structuring the poem with the refrain ending many stanzas, as well as the piece as whole, Zephaniah suggests that this autonomous image of self is the conclusive version of a person’s identity, rendering external identification futile. Additionally, he conveys that this rejection of racial grouping is not a negation of struggle, or erasure of colonial history. The poet states ‘I don’t need an identity crisis to be creative,/ I don’t need an identity crisis to be oppressed’[24]. Here he asserts that oppression can be recognised without acceptance of the oppressor’s divisions. His claim that inhabiting a new type of identity does not hinder creativity is proved by the existence of the poem itself. This is epitomised in the form, the free verse structure, symbolising creativity without traditional restrictions.  Therefore, Zephaniah challenges orthodoxies in literature by showing not only the absurdity, but also the needlessness of colonial norms that categorise people, and the tendency in literature to accept them.

            In conclusion, postcolonial literature challenges orthodoxies in the way non-white people are represented by rewriting a notable marginalized character, introducing diverse experiences into the literary landscape, and disputing the categorization of people based on ethnicity. Whilst Césaire, Evaristo and Zephaniah have different approaches to challenging orthodoxies, they all fulfil David Foster Wallace’s assertion that ‘good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable’[25] by making those who benefit from colonial orthodoxies less powerful, and those that have suffered more. Postcolonial literature seeks to disrupt the power structures and traditions that orthodoxies maintain. Therefore, it is no wonder that Zephaniah diverges from the approach of other postcolonial authors, as postcolonial literature is inherently subversive, and thus must challenge even its own orthodoxies, allowing culture to continue to grow in a way that colonial rule prevented, and continuing to promote freedom in the literary landscape.

           

Bibliography

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Woolf, V. (1941). Between the Acts. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company.

Césaire, A. (2002) Une Tempête (R. Miller, Trans.). New York: TCG Translations.

Evaristo, B.(2020) Girl, Woman, Other. United Kingdom: Penguin Books.

Zephaniah, B (2001) Too Black, Too Strong. United Kingdom: Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

Burn, S. J. (2012) Conversations with David Foster Wallace. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi  

 

[1](Woolf: 1941, p.16)

[2] (Césaire: 2002, 3,5)

[3] (ibid 2,1)

[4] (ibid 3,5)

[5] (ibid 1,2)

[6] (ibid 1,2)

[7] (Evaristo: 2020, p.3)

[8] (ibid. p3)

[9] (ibid.p.3)

[10] (ibid, p.1)

[11] (ibid, p.24)

[12] (ibid, p.25)

[13] (ibid, p.25)

[14] (ibid, p.25)

[15] (ibid, p.3)

[16] (ibid, p.3)

[17] (ibid, p.4)

[18] (Zephaniah: 2001, p.55)

[19] (ibid, p.55)

[20] (ibid, p.55)

[21] (ibid, p.55)

[22] (ibid, p.55)

[23] (ibid, p.55)

[24] (ibid, p.55)

[25] (Burn: 2012, p.21)