Critic's Point of View
What qualifies as postcolonial literature is debatable. The term postcolonial literature has taken on many meanings. The four subjects include:
- Social and cultural change or erosion: It seems that after independence is achieved, one main question arises; what is the new cultural identity?
- Misuse of power and exploitation: Even though the large power ceases to control them as a colony, the settlers still seem to continue imposing power over the native. The main question here; who really is in power here, why, and how does an independence day really mean independence?
- Colonial abandonment and alienation: This topic is generally brought up to examine individuals and not the ex-colony as a whole. The individuals tend to ask themselves; in this new country, where do I fit in and how do I make a living?
- Use of English language literature: It may be asked if the target of post-colonial studies, i.e. the analysis of post-colonial literature and culture, can be reached neglecting literary works in the original languages of post-colonial nations.
Read more about this topic: Postcolonial Literature
Famous quotes containing the words point of view, critic, point and/or view:
“There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.”
—Gustave Flaubert (18211880)
“The great critic ... must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (18741965)
“Where is the point at which the merely individual
Explosion breaks...?”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)