Postcolonial Writings of
George Orwell
and Derek Walcott
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
Orwell Biographical Overview
• Born Eric Blair in India (1903) but
educated in England
• 1922—returned to India to join
Imperial Police of Burma
Biographical Overview
• Imperialist experience made him
recognize the abuses of British
imperialism
• 1927—returned 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
Biographical Overview
• Satirized Stalin’s communist regime
in Animal Farm
• Warned against a totalitarian future
(“Big Brother”) for Britain in 1984
• Died of tuberculosis in 1950
Orwell Central Artistic Concepts
• Brutally honest political satire
against totalitarianism
• Contempt for political ideologies
and recognition of their potential for
oppression
• Recognized language’s power as a
tool of oppression
“Shooting An Elephant” p. 2457
• Critiques imperialism from the imperialist’s
perspective
• Reveals “the real motives for which despotic
governments act” (p. 2458)
• Colonizers as well as colonized people
become victims of imperial policy (p. 245960)
• Shooting the elephant becomes a metaphor
for colonial violence
Walcott Biographical Overview
• Born on Caribbean island St. Lucia, part of
British West Indies (gained independence in
1979)
• Product of Caribbean’s hybrid culture—
French, British, Indian, African
• Mixed ethnic background—descended from
both white colonialists and African slaves
• Won Nobel Prize for Literature (1992)
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
“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 2533)