Post-colonial literature comprises some of the most expressive ideals on colonialism and its role in abashing the independence of countless civilizations, unavoidably creating new cultural identities, and being the subject of study in recent post-colonial time. Colonial discourse—or the collection of narratives, opinions, and statements concerning the colonized peoples—and its counter-discourse, specifically, embody the innumerable accounts of colonialism in various parts of the world, spanning several centuries. These two discourses may be better explained through a closer lens involving perspective, or the metanarratives that concretize each side of the colonial dilemma.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing are befitting examples of colonial discourse and counter-discourse respectively though, through the exploration of both works, each discourse inevitably manifests into the other. With this, there are several elements of post-colonial literature authors assert that encompass the mentioned discourses; through these fictitious depictions of events in history, evaluations of the content can be made that harbor subsequent informed standpoints. Shakespeare’s The Tempest as colonial discourse and Gyasi’s Homegoing as counter-discourse each exemplify the components of post-colonial literature that allow for a closer examination of colonialism and its effects on cultural development and retrogression.
Before exploring each textual strategy that post-colonial writers engage, it is necessary to first distinguish between colonial discourse and counter-discourse. Colonial discourse favors the European fantasy, or the imperialistic ideas that drive the practice of colonialism. In this idealism that Europeans and other colonizing groups construct, imperialists are portrayed as civilized, benevolent, and generous heroes that assimilate and colonize the natives, who are painted as uncivilized savages that loaf around, are unknowing of proper languages and religions, and can often be violent when confronted with change or jurisdiction. In Re-Imagining Diversity and Connection in the Chaos World: An Interview with Patrick Chamoiseau, Patrick Chamoiseau, author of School Days, says, “European colonizers often thought that the people that they colonized didn’t have a history before the Europeans ‘enlightened them’” (Chamoiseau, Re-Imagining Diversity).
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In distinction to these ideals is counter-discourse, or the way of thinking that opposes an institutionalized discourse. As will be considered, Gyasi’s Homegoing works in conjunction with The Tempest in differentiating the two discourses because of its ability to focus on the natives of Ghana and the negative impact the Englishmen left in their extensive time at the Gold Coast; The Tempest focuses on the achievements and trials of Prospero, who is himself a colonizer portrayed as a compassionate and forgiving duke. Bill Ashcroft’s The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures discusses the textual strategies in post-colonial writing that cater to both discourses. It defines post-colonial literatures, covers the major topics in this genre of writing, such as hegemony, language, place and displacement, and observes critical models of the literature that further categorizes the genre.
Specific areas of Ashcroft’s are reminiscent of characters in Gyasi’s Homegoing, like the category “place and displacement” pertaining to Marjorie’s feelings of disconnect from both America and Ghana. Other sections include language, which is a prominent conception in The Tempest due to Caliban’s use of Prospero and Miranda’s language against them to curse. Ashcroft’s The Empire Writes Back and his other informational volume, Post-colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, will be the basis of deconstructing these two works, along with the writings of other accredited authors in post-colonial studies.
Post-colonial writers employ the metanarrative, a narrative account that experiments with or explores the idea of storytelling, often by drawing attention to its own artificiality, or an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences. Yaa Gyasi certainly utilizes this tactic of post-colonial writing in her novel Homegoing, what with it being composed entirely of familial stories that extend over the course of eight generations. Her focus on the individuals’ stories is critical, as opposed to the quintessential viewing of history in which we tend to look back at these catastrophic events occurring to masses of people, deterring from their experiences.
The metanarrative in Homegoing centers around the notion that there is more than one side to a story, which is emphasized in Yaw’s tale when he says to his class, “This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. […] But now we come upon the problem of conflicting stories” (226). In each story before and thereafter Yaw’s, it is evident that history has veiled the experiences and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of individuals, which Gyasi aims to uncover in this fictional depiction of colonialism in Ghana, and the slavery and consequential oppression in America.
Homegoing’s counter-discourse literary style therefore highlights several of the calamitous events hidden in history, and uses metanarrative to extract and examine these stories. In contrast, Shakespeare’s The Tempest employs a colonial discourse literary style that utilizes the metanarrative to highlight only Prospero’s perceived benign, generous, and forgiving actions. Because the play’s plot centers mainly around Prospero’s relationships with his daughter and the shipwrecked group of noble people, it lacks the proper explanations of those he has enslaved: Ariel and Caliban.
Brief back stories are given on the two, yet in Prospero’s own voice; he characterizes Caliban especially as a monster in which his frame of reference is heavily discarded. An excellent TED talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, called The Danger of a Single Story details the idealizations Yaw discusses with his class; Adichie emphasizes the importance of recognizing that no story is one-sided, and the dangers that only observing one side—typically the more contentious side—may present. This conception appropriately embodies the use of the metanarrative and is useful in understanding why Gyasi employed this textual strategy in her novel.
Colonial mimicry, or the desire for a reformed, recognizable other, is another element of post-colonial literature prevalent in The Tempest by means of the relationship between Caliban and Prospero, or the colonized and the colonizer. Mimicry is an ambivalent and ironic case in post-colonial studies given that the colonized group may use the European fantasy against them as a form of mockery, rebellion, and/or resistance. Ashcroft, in his informational guide on post-colonial concepts Post-colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, describes mimicry as being, ‘When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to ‘mimic’ the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits. Rather, the result is a ‘blurred copy’ of the colonizer that that can be quite threatening” (155). With this, The Tempest can be viewed as a platform for instances of colonial mimicry, namely in the relationship between Caliban, Prospero, and Miranda. After his attempted rape on Miranda, Prospero condemns Caliban to a life of servitude and suffering; his frequent visits to Caliban constitute mockery, malevolent behavior, and torturous punishments carried out by the many spirits enslaved with his magic, including Ariel.
Because Miranda had previously taught her and Prospero’s language to Caliban—or more like worked towards assimilating and civilizing the native islander—Caliban was able to use this learned trait against the two, thus provoking further ambivalence in their dynamic. In Homi Bhabha’s journal article “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse”, Bhabha comments on another work that “splits to reveal the limitations of liberty in his [Locke’s Second Treatise’s] double use of the word ‘slave’” (Bhabha 126). Concerning these double meanings, he says, “…first simply, descriptively as the locus of a legitimate form of ownership, then as the trope for an intolerable, illegitimate exercise of power” (Bhabha 127); this “illegitimate exercise of power” constitutes the notion of the irony of mimicry. By working to assimilate natives, much like Prospero does with Caliban, the colonizer is more so leveling power and inadvertently giving the natives the ability to use these assimilative materials against the European fantasy.
In Homegoing, Gyasi employs mimicry in Kojo Freeman’s story in a somewhat different way, though it still illustrates the same unintended irony and backfire as colonial mimicry. Kojo consistently works to put on a brave façade for his seven children—so consistently that they are unafraid in the face of authority. Gyasi writes, “Jo had worked hard so that his children wouldn’t have to inherit his fear, but now he wished they had just the tiniest morsel of it” (125). The counter-discourse characteristic here reflects the occurrence of mimicry not between colonizer and native, but in a relationship that nonetheless presents an instance of irony foregoing a societal threat.
Another key aspect of the two discourses that post-colonial writers exploit is the impression of place and displacement. Place and displacement touch on the crisis of identity when removed from one’s birthplace, or otherwise familiar environment, in which they’ve grown accustomed. In The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, Ashcroft describes place and displacement as, “It is here that the special post-colonial crisis of identity comes into being; the concern with the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place” (8).
An example of this concept is illustrated in Homegoing, particularly in Marjorie’s conflicting feelings towards her displacement from Ghana and her place in America. Marjorie’s longing to belong evidently outcasts her at her school, considering she must adapt her language and avoid other students during the day to protect herself from questioning and humiliation. Other instances of place and displacement are included in the stories of James Richard Collins, Willie Black, and Carson “Sonny” Clifton. These characters find relentless anguish in their dwellings, whether it be due to feelings of unacceptance, like Marjorie, or senses of threat from their surroundings. In Kojo’s story, he describes the night terrors that would torment his daughter, “…a little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn’t name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness” (120).
In this case, place causes complications in identity because, as previously mentioned, Kojo is wary of instilling the fear of his surroundings that he possesses to his children, though they can sense it themselves unconsciously. In The Tempest, place and displacement have an effect on all of the characters, namely Prospero and the group of shipwrecked nobles. When cast to the island after Ariel’s storm destroys their ship, Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo roam the island searching for Ferdinand, all the while displaying the effects that this displacement has had on them. Antonio and Sebastian see a new opportunity for power, and discuss plans of killing King Alonso and Gonzalo. Gonzalo walks the island describing his own utopia, optimistic that this shipwreck could present an opportunity of its own in his favor.
Further, Prospero undoubtedly displays these seemingly innate and power-hungry characteristics, too, having enslaved Ariel and Caliban not long after arriving on the island with Miranda. This newfound isolation—which can be supported by Ashcroft’s mention of displacement as “the alienation of vision and the crisis in self-image” (9)—stirs in Prospero a festering desire for vengeance on his brother, Antonio, and a wicked streak of imperialistic behavior; his displacement manifests into a new identity in a new place, and he is quick to assimilate the islanders as a form of assumed power. Similarly, it would appear that Sycorax took on the same imperialistic entitlement as Prospero, considering Ariel’s recounting of her includes his entrapment when unwilling to carry out her demands. However, much like the metanarrative and the danger of a single story, Ariel and Prospero’s remembrance of Sycorax seems brewed from a hatred that can be linked to several ideals: gender and witchcraft, as in the problem posed when a woman possesses any power, the lack of a mother and wife figure in Prospero’s life, or other unnamed disputes that occurred between the three before Sycorax’s death.
Language in colonial discourse and counter-discourse is one of the main features of imperial oppression. Ashcroft in The Empire Writes Back says, “Language becomes the medium through which a hierarchical structure of power is perpetuated, and the medium through which conceptions of ‘truth’, ‘order’ and ‘reality’ become established” (7). Shakespeare utilizes language in The Tempest as another means of depicting mimicry, while Gyasi focuses on how language may be lost in translation over a span of generations; however, they both emphasize the barrier that language creates among the consequent divide of groups. The most prevalent example of ambivalent language usage in The Tempest is in Caliban’s interactions with Prospero and Miranda after having attempted to rape the Duke of Milan’s daughter.
Prospero’s attempts to educate and civilize him [Caliban] have only succeeded in corrupting him. He suffers terribly at his master’s hands, but he learns nothing from his suffering—not even how to avoid it. When Miranda charges him with ingratitude, he replies, ‘You taught me language, and my profit on’t/ Is I know how to curse’ (1.2. 362-3). The remark succinctly expresses, and retrospectively justifies, Prospero’s view of Caliban. (23)
This example may be traced to the notion of mimicry, considering Caliban pits Prospero and Miranda’s own language to curse them. In Gyasi’s novel, language is a subject that intermittently surfaces throughout each story. As generations progress, for example, Effia’s descendants begin to more and more forget how to speak Twi, especially Marjorie who is displaced from Ghana altogether after Yaw and Esther move to America. There is a moment of irony when Marjorie arrives back in Ghana, when the young locals speak to her in English about touring the Cape Coast Castle: “After all the traveling, she couldn’t stand another strange body so near hers, and so she soon found herself shouting in Twi, ‘I’m from Ghana, stupid. Can’t you see?’ The boy didn’t stop his English” (264). Marjorie also faces language dilemmas in her American school, when her teachers reach out to Yaw and Esther about her usage of Twi. Her grandmother, Akua, is insistent on her speaking Twi when she visits Ghana, but this takes Marjorie some adjusting because of the demand to speak English in her classes. A shift in identity consequently takes place, considering Marjorie abandons Twi in America, even when talking to her parents. This opposing of languages in both discourses thus presents a barrier that mangles the opportunity for effective communication and expressiveness.
A final element of post-colonial literature that is mainly employed in The Tempest, but is also evident in Homegoing, is magic realism. Although magic realism is difficult to define in other literary sources and theories, Stephen Slemon in “Magic Realism as Post-colonial Discourse” attempts to “place the concept within the context of post-colonial cultures as a distinct and recognizable kind of literary discourse” (10). In explaining the term Slemon says,
The term ‘magic realism’ is an oxymoron, one that suggests a binary opposition between the representational code of realism and that, roughly, of fantasy. In the language of narration in a magic realist text, a battle between two oppositional systems takes place, each working toward the creation of a different kind of fictional world from the other. Since the ground rules of these two worlds are incompatible, neither one can fully come into being, and each remains suspended, locked in a continuous dialectic with the ‘other,’ a situation which creates disjunction within each of the separate discursive systems, rending them with gaps, absences, and silences. (10-11)
This definition pairs with the colonial discourse of The Tempest, given that the weight of the play is on Prospero as a ruler, a magician, and a colonizer. Magic realism corresponds with the European fantasy and mimicry,—or corruption and ambivalent irony—both forming an oxymoron of their own. Slemon’s interpretation of magic realism is essentially the European fantasy being dismantled by native mimicry, resistance, and insurgency, which is what he means by speaking about how the two worlds are “incompatible”. Prospero’s use of magic in The Tempest is arguably symbolic of the power that imperialists feel they possess when colonizing people and land. While Caliban and Ariel fear this power, though, characters such as Kojo in Homegoing fight against the oppression. After Kojo is accused of performing witchcraft by his pastor, Ma Aku becomes angry in saying, “The white man’s god is just like the white man. He thinks he is the only god, just like the white man thinks he is the only . […] Who told them what a witch was?” (123).
Here valorization, or ascribing value or validity, is another post-colonial literary element in play; it relates to magic realism by means of resisting the European fantasy, and thus prevents either component to come fully into being, or creating a disjunction. Returning back to instances from The Tempest, Slemon also writes, “In magic realism this battle is represented in the language of narration by the foregrounding of two opposing discursive systems, with neither managing to subordinate or contain the other. This sustained opposition forestalls the possibility of interpretive closure through any act of naturalizing the text to an established system of representation” (12). The two conflicting narratives of Caliban and Prospero hardly find closure, considering the play ends with neither in disarray: Prospero simply prepares to return to Milan and Caliban’s fate is undetermined and unresolved.
Post-colonial literature includes colonial discourse and counter-discourse in which comprise several varying elements, such as mimicry, place and displacement, language, and magic realism, that meticulously depict colonialism and its effects on both cultural development and cultural deterioration. Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing are only two post-colonial texts that predominantly incorporate these elements out of hundreds of other various works that aim to achieve similar objectives. Evaluating colonialist content through post-colonial literature provides a way for readers and scholars to develop a standpoint after having determined both sides of the story; the danger a single story may cause relapses in history which authors like Yaa Gyasi and Shakespeare, though his allegiances are not always clear, aim to exploit and avoid.
