Paper on Post Modernism and Postcolonialism

Introduction to Literary Criticism

By: Gabriel Gradi Mahendra (10 4214 075)

You’d better not look down

If you want to keep flying
That’s what B. B. King, a jazz musician, has said and moved Peter Barry to quote the
statement on his Acknowledgements in his comprehensive book Beginning Theory: An Introduction
to literary and cultural theory (2002). Actually, what he wants to say is that it’s everyone rights and
pursuit to “keep flying”, to keep at the higher point in life to catch the dreams. We can imagine, if
we are at 2,000 feet from ground and we look down, there would probably come a feeling of shock
and trembling heart. If we are not ready, we’ll no longer on the air and then strike the ground, the
end of the journey. King’s wise words also has pushed forward an idea, and also has led to discover
an awareness, that wealth, happiness and harmony in society is life’s destination of mankind.
Everyone should also have freedom and the rights to choose the best choice. Therefore, any effort
that urges such standardization should be eroded. It will just disregard the fact that every human
being is created different. Moreover, there are also cultural, social, gender, racial and national
context that cannot accomodate any kind of generalization.
In relation to the world, literature is an imitation of the ideal world, the world of thought. It
is human being that thinks, thus, literature will go further and be shaped as the experience of
mankind improved. In discussing about reading literature, Diane Elam says that something always
remain in literature – “a residual, a leftover from the past demanding to be thought as a question for
the future.” (Widdowson:30). There is always something useful for people at the present time to
read literature.
Anyway, criticism is more than just reading a piece of literature. It contains a curiosity about
human experience and an eagerness to achieve understanding, offered by an author or a poet.
Criticizing literature will encourage a critic, or a reader, to look beyond the “imitation”, to see, hear
and feel the pureness of thought. Literary criticism is also important to know what is exactly
represented by the writer. Doing a literary criticism is like conducting a discovery to underground
caves, to find a treasure, that is, a thought hidden underneath the consciousness. Start from this
aim, a theory is needed to support the criticism. It becomes the digging tools for the discovery.
The 1980s probably saw the high-water mark of literary theory (Barry:1). Many books and
articles have contributed to mark the decades, and also the decades before, as the ‘moment of
theory’. Many theories on literary criticism have flourished in academic life. In the Beginning Theory
(2002) at least there are 13 theories, from the Theory before ‘theory’, Liberal Humanism, until
nowadays topic of Ecocriticism. What will be discussed later are the approaches which also born
near that ‘moment of theory’. Post-Modernism came into attention at the 1980s, while the
Postcolonial theory has emerged at the 1990s. Both theories has brought new perspectives in seeing
history and progress in human life. It can be said that by discussing them together there will come an
understanding of life phenomena, to face and then value the past as a touchstone to build the
future.

Post-Modernism and Postcolonialism theory

It is not only the ‘post’ term that makes both theories being discussed in this paper. At least
there are two reasons that encourage this discussion. Firstly, Post-Modernism and Postcolonialism
theory has offered new way of thinking: Post-Modernism with its enjoyment to see the past and the
life, to celebrate every kind of human capabilities but in a way that experimentations should come to
an end; and Postcolonialism comes up with its proposal that this world cannot be measured with
such universalism, because unitary view will just marginalise some people or nations that have
different way to live. Secondly, both theories have similarities in the stages of each theory
development. For instance, a Post-Modernist artist will likely to mix ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture in
their work, while a Postcolonial writer, at such stage, will celebrate his ‘hibridity’ of being a
postcolonial writer. Here, we see that both theories share the same aspects, and it will be proven,
that the theories can complete each other.
In literary criticism, then, it is important to know what speciality and arguments do the
theories possess. Further, we will discuss about a brief explanation of each theory. Since Post-
Modernism has came up first, so it is better to understand the Postcolonial theory after knowing
what Post-Modernism has brought into literary criticism.
Post-Modernism theory
Just like Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Modernism has its ‘sibling’ which is Post-
Modernism. But, the latter relationship are different with the former. Peter Barry states in his
welcoming statement in Post-Modernism chapter that ‘there is a great deal of debate about how
exactly modernism and postmodernism differ.’ (Barry: 81). The term ‘post’ has a meaning of being
later than Modernism. Thus, it is worthy enough to talk a little bit about modernism.
It is said that the twentieth-century is unable to be understood without a proper knowledge
of Modernism. It is just like an earthquake in arts which ‘one of the major epicentres of this
earthquake seems to have been Vienna, during the period of 1890-1910’ (Barry, 81). It became a
global earthquake that the influence has spread throughout European countries. The spirit of the
influence was the Enlightenment, that has encouraged philosophes in France and many artists to
have a new mode of life, challenged and then rejected any kind of ‘old’ concepts. In other words, the
modernists have done a lot of experiments and ‘many of the structures it toppled have never been
rebuilt’ (Barry, 81). Modernism era seemed to be a new-delightful and promising chance for the
future.
Some authors and poets of modern era are still well-known until now. The ‘high-priests’ in
literature in the high modern era from 1910-1930 are, just some of them, T. S. Elliot, James Joyce,
Virginia Woolf. And there also Franz Kafka and Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote in French or German.
These writers practised some important characteristics of literature modernism, which in common
have a new emphasis on ‘experimentation and innovation.’(Barry, 82) that had led them to discover
new genres and writing-forms in literature.
So far, the welcome-question in discussing Post-Modernism appeared stronger in our mind.
What is actually the attitude of Post Modernism towards Modernism? In comparison, both are
characterised from their use of fragmented forms with a new liking for random writing, and
,famously, carried an abandonement of ‘any divine pretensions of authorship’ (Barry:83).
Nevertheless, there are two basic differences in the two principles. Firstly, while modernism sees the
past with lament and pessimism, post-modernism celebrates the past as liberating and exciting
moment. Though the past history has been tainted with blood, massacre, and sadness it is the
attitude of post-modernism to revisit the past and regard it as how life goes and how it always will.
Secondly, modernism is famous by its asceticism, that it tends to reject any ‘old-complex’ concept
and thus distinguished it from what they called as minimalism. Post-modernism rejected such kind of
distinction between ‘high’ and ‘contemporary’ art, and they seems ‘happy to be nothing but surface,
without the depths of significance.’ (Barry:85). Such post-modernists will make a sort of play like
‘Waiting for Godot’, when waiting is the theme, and there is nothing else, no climax and no really
significant shifts throughout the play.
 The presence of Jean-Francois Lyotard was a landmark in post-modernism. He brought the
term post-modernism to its current and fashionable sense. He took up a debate with Jurgen
Habermas, about the incomplete process of Enlightenment, and he says, ‘we are being urged to put
an end to experimentation’ (Barry:86). Moreover, he adds that modernity will only become
authoritative and overarching explanation, and hence, the horror of the past would likely to happen
again. Lyotard is also the pioneer to propose an interest toward ‘mini-narratives’ which can enable a
specific group in a particular circumstances to aim for their own virtue.
The second interest of Post-modernism is the awareness of ‘the loss of the real’ at the
contemporary lives. It was firstly argued by Jean Baudrillard in 1981. He evokes the ‘fullness’ of the
past, and then shares an awareness that now there seems no distinction between real and imagined.
He calls this concept ‘hyperreality’. In his book Simulations (1981) he asks a question: how if a sign is
not an index of its underlying reality, but merely of other signs? How if it is simply nothing that a sign
signify? There are four stages that related to his concept on ‘hyperreality’: firstly, when sign
represents reality; secondly, when sign misrepresents reality; thirdly, when the sign conceals an
absence; and the fourth, when a sign bears no relation to any reality. Peter Barry says that the
‘hyperreality’ stages would be ‘ a latter-day Platonism’ that ‘what is normally taken as a solid and
real world is actually just a tissue of dreamlike images’ (Barry:89). It tries to say that what is
commonly regarded as true, actually it is untrue or fake. There seems a meaning, but there is
absence concealed in something.
Postcolonial theory
This theory has emerged to intellectual study in the 1990s. Postcolonial theory tries to erode
any universalists claim, once made on behalf of literature by liberal humanists. A claim was evoked
that a good literature is timeless and has universal significances. Consequently, this claim is
confronted by postcolonialist because it disregards any particular differences. Universalists have
made a standard of what is good and what is not, and actually this standard just perpetuate and
promote Eurocentric values, where Western civilization is sought as the best measurement.
At 1961, a book The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon was published in France. In his
book he talks about what is called as ‘cultural resistance’. He shares his thought about those people
throughout the world that have not been liberated or were in a progress to liberate themselves. He
says that colonial people ought to reclaim their own past, that has actually begun before the coming
of colonisers, and to ‘begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past has been devalued’
(Barry:193). A few decades after that, Edward Said has also become the landmark in postcolonial
history when in his book, Orientalism (1978), he discuss about the European way of identifying them
as superior than the East, who they call as ‘the Other’. The European people emotion and reaction
toward the East are sometimes only based on racial consideration, not from logical reasons.
Therefore, it is the aim of postcolonial writer to get back the dignity of their nations.
In Beginning Theory (2002), Peter Barry lists four characteristics of postcolonialism. Firstly, it
rejects contemporary and modern nation, because it has been tainted with colonial status of their
country. Secondly, it believes that to write in the coloniser’s language will settle an involvement in
colonial structure. Postcolonial writers will use their own language to show their independence.
Thirdly, postcolonial writers are always entitled to have a double-identity or hibridity. They are the
people of colonized nation, but their education, which was brought and maintained by the
colonisers, has made them to appear like ‘colonisers’. This hybrid identity actually which has made
postcolonial situation bring into being, and it is closely related to the fourth characteristic. The
Fourth, there are transitions involving a ‘cross-cultural’ interaction undergone by postcolonial
writers, which can be divided into three stages: Adopt, for the writers try to adopt standard writing
form because of its universal validity; Adapt, when writers adapt European form into local subject
matter; and Adept, when local writers make their own way of writing, without any use of European
genre or form.
 The development on postcolonial theory has affiliated with two different streams. The first,
the emotionless and theoretical one, is the post-structuralist view on postcolonial hibridity. The view
is that the doubleness or hibridity is an exact proof that the nature of human identitiy is simply fluid
and unstable. They also concerns with ‘the contradictory currents of signification within texts’
(Barry:196). The second stream is less overtly theoretical. It is Edward Said who seems to accept
some premises of liberal humanism. His manner to literature is in the same degree of comparison
between ‘Anglo-American’ and ‘Frenc’ in Feminist theory.

Post-Modernism and Postcolonial theory: Their Sharp Edges

Theory in literary criticism is like a knife, that will help the surgeon to examine what is inside a body.
Post-Modernism is a useful theory in dealing with literary work that has ‘eclectic’ forms, unique and
rather different with common works. But, what is really interesting is the idea of ‘the loss of the
real’. It is not merely a misrepresentation of the signified, but it is a concept that suppose an
absence is always concealed within texts. The result is, there will be no enough ground for critic to
go further examining a literary work. The other interesting point is an attitude to wait for a
legitimation of such promises, of such grand-narratives, is regarded unnecessary by post-modernists.
From Peter Barry criticism on Waiting for Godot using post-modernism theory, we know that
Vladimir and Estragon are involved in language games. It is not the promise of the coming of Godot
that will liberate them, but it is their conversations actually which has almost liberated them.
The attitude to abandon any kind of universalism is what post-modernism and postcolonial theory
shares. While the post-modernism tends to give chance for a ‘put-aside’ idea and groups, it is
postcolonial writers who assure the reader that controlling over something will make someone
receives the spirit and idea of being ‘colonisers’; and, thus, keep anyone from being liberated.

References:
Barry, Peter. 2002. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Widdowson, Peter. 1999. LITERATURE. London: Routledge.