CHAPTER2
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this chapter, the writer will provide some theories in order to support the
analysis. The theories encompass about Postcolonial
that including Representation,
Racial discrimination, Stereotype, Hybridity, and Phase of postcolonial writing.
2.1.
Postcolonial
Postcolonial is the main idea of discrimination terms. There are two groups that
involve in postcolonial era which are divided into superior as European or Western and
inferior as non-European. The specific space of post-colonialism was articulated by
Edward Said in Barry's book "Beginning Theory'' that "Postcolonial is an awareness of
representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral 'Other'." (2009:187)
So, according to Peter Barry in postcolonial
criticism non-European
IS
considered as 'other' and different with European. Easily sp ng, European is a
dominant group rather than non-European. Another statement of this idea is stated in the
book "Literary Theory, The Basic" that "Postcolonial
criticism radically questions the
aggressively expansionist imperialism of the colonizing powers, and in particulat;;.. the
system of values that supported imperialism and that it sees as still d01ninant within the
Western world." (Bertens, 2008:160)
This idea studies about the power of colonizer through the colonized in conquer
cultural identity. It is followed by the process and the effects of cultural displacements
that certainly followed colonial conquest and rule and its consequences for communal
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From literature study, it is stated in Barry's book the purpose of postcolonial
criticism.
"One significant effect of postcolonial criticism is to further undermine the
universalist claims once made on behalf of literature by liberal humanist critics.
If we claim that great literature has a timeless and universal significance we
thereby demote or disregard cultural, social, regional, and national differences
in experience and outlook, preferring instead to judge all literature by a single,
supposedly 'universal', standard." (2009:185)
The statement above means that marginal literary works can never be as good
as the universal literary works. In other words, only great literature can be more
universal and timeless rather than the marginal one because of cultural, social, regional,
and national differences.
Fanon argued that "The first step for 'colonialised' people in finding a voice
and an identity is to reclaim their own past." (Barry, 2009:186)
It is stated that both black and white people wilJ have been taught to see history,
culture, and progress as beginning with the arrival of the Europeans. So, the first step of
postcolonial perspective is to reclaim the nation's past and the second is to erase step by
step the colonialist ideology.
In "Postcolonial Revisited: Writing Wales in English by Kirsti Bohata stated
about postcolonial study.
"Postcolonial studies encompass history, economics, colonial and imperial
discourses, the condition of colonized peoples, strategies of decolonization, and
so on; literary criticism directly engaged with post-colonial writing in any
language, but most commonly in a European language; and revisionist projects
which force a reassessment of the literature of colonialism and the metropolitan
'centre'." (2004:2)
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Postcolonial study has been viewed as a problematic thing deals with colonizer
and colonized people. In the literary criticism, postcolonial writing also involved in any
language to the literary works but commonly in a European language.
2.2.
Representation
Representation theory is a part of postcolonial criticism. In the book
"Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices" by Stuart Hall it is
explained that "Representation means using language to say something meaningful
about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people." (2003:IS)
The concept of representation is to connect meaning and language in the study
of culture. This concept can help people about how language is used to represent the
world through the theory. In the cultural study, it can be used to represent or to
symbolize something and to stand for other people about concepts, ideas, and feelings.
This theory can help people to give meaning to things through language and make
people able to express a complex thought about things to other people.
When people talk about representation, 'other' is used to represent 'difference'
in popular culture today. However, 'other' and 'difference' are related. Questions of
'difference' have come to the front in cultural studies in recent decades and been
addressed in different ways. It is said by Hall that "Representation is a complex business
and, especially when dealing with 'difference', it engages feelings, attitudes, and
emotions and it mobilizes fears and anxieties in the viewer, at deeper level than we can
explain in a simple, common-sense way." (2003:226)
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Through Hall's statement, representation is aimed to deepen the understanding
and the analysis about 'difference'. In the terms of 'difference' feelings and emotions
are related in non-white people so that is why this theory is needed. It can help to learn
about how representation signifies practice and continues to develop the concept to
explain the operations.
In the representation of non-white, there are positive and negative images of
non-white people in life and culture. Related to those images, there is a statement in
binary opposition positively 'Black is beautiful', it shows that non-white people are
accepted but still different. It aims to create a positive identification. However, 'being
black' is represented, but not displace the negative. (2003:272-3)
2.3.
Racial discrimination
Since the eighteenth century, the concept of race has played a central role in the
construction of the idea of national character, and for a second group of thinkers race is
not simply an 'imaginary'.
"Racial discrimination is a theme that runs throughout postcolonial discourse,
as white Europeans consistently emphasized their superiority over darkerskinned people. This is most evident in South Africa, whose policy of apartheid
is institutionalized in national laws. These laws included the Prohibition of
Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act, which prohibited sexual
intercourse and marriage between whites and blacks. The Groups Areas Act
limited black access into areas reserved for whites. The only blacks permitted in
these areas were workers, who first had to apply for state permission. The
Population Registration Act categorized Africans into racial groups, which
were based upon a person's appearance, education, and manners."
(http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-postcolonialism/themes.html)
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The white people show their superiority over the non-white throughout
postcolonial discourse. The non-white is always considered as 'other' in society. In the
sexual intercourse, there is a law stated that interaction between the white and the nonwhite is prohibited. It is clearly shown that racial discrimination is existed. In the field of
work, the non-white treated differently, they can't
have same occupation without
applying state permission. The non-white was also classified into racial group which is
based on their appearance, education, and manners.
Stuart
Hall
in
his book
"Representation: Cultural
Representations and
Signifying Practices" said that racial 'difference' tended to cluster two main themes.
First is the subordinate status and 'innate laziness' of blacks which means that they are
'naturally' born to be a slave and at the same time they are stubbornly unwilling to work
in appropriate ways, so it makes profitable for their masters. The second is innate
'primitivism' which means lack of culture and made them genetically incapable of
'civilized' refinements. (2003:244)
In the concept of race, there are some differences about this theory which is
conceived as discrete and homogenous.
Theory of race is posited from biology,
geography, and climatic conditions looks from the differences of physical appearance,
culture, and historical experience. Race has played a central role of how white racist
society treated black differently. Patricia Waugh in her book "An Oxford Guide Literary
Theory and Criticism" explained about:
"The Negro race in particular was thought to be incapable of contributing
effectively to the intellectual progress of civilization, though there were plenty
of examples, despite their enslaved condition, of black people writing their race
into the developing concept of nation" (Waugh, 2006:371)
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In the sentences above, black people were an object of the oppression from the
past until now. White people often think everything that associated with black people are
not good for the future or in other words they are incapable. For example, in the past
they could only work as a slaves but in a real life they still wanted to be accepted and
treated well by the white people.
In the book ''Key Concepts in Literary Theory" by Julian Wolfreys, Ruth
Robbins, and Kenneth Womack, it is explained that:
"Race has become a trope of ultimate, irreducible difference between cultures,
linguistic groups, or adherents of specific belief systems'. Thus, as a discursive,
political and ideological term, race functions frequently as a means of definition
based on binary oppositions between self and other, civilised and savage, and
so on." (2006:82)
·
Race has become the key of how people are differentiated in culture and group.
Definition ofrace can be described through the binary opposition. From the explanation
above, self and other shows that there is majority considered as self and minority is
considered as 'other' in society. Likewise, the civilized and savage describe the whites
are people while the non-whites are 'something else'.
2.4.
Stereotyping
In postcolonial
study, stereotype is used to represent the minority as
'difference' and 'other' from the majority. In "Representation: Cultural Representations
and SignifYing Practices", Stuart Hall said that "People who are significantly different
from the majority are exposed to a binary fort;11 of representation such as good/bad,
civilized/primitive, ugly/excessively attractive, repelling because differtlntlcompelling
because strange and exotic." (2003:229)
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According to Hall, the majority and the minority people cannot have the same
treatment so there is a binary form or a pair which is contrasted to a word of
representation to show the difference. When talking about the majority, the white are
always considered good in every perspective while the minority is always become the
bad. It is because the non-white stereotype which is created by the white. Even though
black people are shown at the top of their achievement, they are still considered fail to
carry it off. For example is Linford Christie, the non-white who becomes a captain of the
British Olympics squad because he won the Olympic gold medal in Barcelona. But all of
the perspective is not about the people and the occasion but about the 'other' or
'difference'. Stereotyping of people also can be seen from physical differences which is
white people and non-white people. It is said that "Black people were reduced to the
signifiers of their physical difference-thick lips, fuzzy hair, broad face and nose, and so
on." (2003:249)
This figure has reduced black people to a few simplified, reductive, and
essentialized
features.
So, it can be said that stereotyping try to get hold the
characteristics of a person, reduce everything about the person from its traits and fix the
condition without change or development. However, stereotype of people can make
them considered to be the same or become 'othe't' in society. In his book, Hall said that
"Stereotype tends to occur where there are gross inequalitie
Qf power." (2003:258)
Power is usually the determiner of how people are considered as superior in a
group. This thing is directed to the subordinate or inferior group because pow:eris sort of
a game where it classifies people according to a norm and crel\tes the inferlbrM 'other'
in society.
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Stereotype is an explanation about representation of certain characters in
literary works that related to racianational and social groups.
2.5.
Hybridity
Related to postcolonial study, hybridity possibly happens as the result of
colonial encounter between colonizer and colonized. Hans Bertens in his book "Literary
Theory : The Basics" quoted Bhabha:
"The cultural interaction of colonizer and colonized leads to a fusion of cultural
forms that from one perspective, because it signals its 'productivity', confirms
the power of the colonial presence, but that as a form of mimicry
simultaneously 'unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial
power." (2008:167)
Bhabha assumes that hybridity not only to indicate the blend of cultural
interaction but to represent the unpredictability of its presence. Bhabha focuses on the
interaction and his belief of hybridity to explain about what actually happens or may
happen in the colonial and postcolonial situation.
Another
explanation
about hybridity
is stated
by Raman
Selden, Peter
Widdowson, and Peter Brooker in their book "A Reader's Guide to contemporary
Literary Theory".
"Hybridity is an enabling metaphor which assists theorization of the 'black
experience' as a 'diaspora experience' (both in Britain and the Caribbean) and
brings to the fore the doubleness or double-voiced structures which he sees as
constitutive of this experience". (2005:231)
Hall's analysis of black diaspora cultural experience and the concept metaphor
of hybridity both to indicate the complexity of the presence or absence of the non West
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and to highlight the dialogue of power and resistance, of refusal and acknowledgment
15
against the dominance of European cultures. The diaspora experience is defined not by
purity, but heterogeneity and variety of identity.
Selden, Widdowson and Brooker quoted Bhabha about what is hybridity.
"Bhabha sees hybridity as a 'problematic of colonial representation' which
'reverses the effects of the colonialist disowal [of difference], so that other
"denied" knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the basis
of its authority" (2005:229)
Bhabha said that hybridity is not simple in the colonial representation because
production
of hybridization
expresses the condition
possibility of counter-colonial resistance.
of colonial
enunciation
and
This condition will provoke mix cultured
between the West and the non-West which means the non-West as a minority have to be
equal with the West.
In ''Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction", Hybridity is explained in
general meaning.
"Hybridity works in different ways at the same time, according to the cultural,
economic, and political demands of specific situations. It involves processes of
interaction that create new social spaces to which new meanings are given.
These relations enable the articulation of experiences of change in societies
splintered by modernity, and they facilitate consequent demands for social
transformation." (Young, 2003:79)
Hybridity has different ways in certain situations. It creates process of new
interactions and new meanings in social places. From the relation of the interaction, it
enables the experiences of changes in society. There will be also social transformation in
the society.
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2.6.
Phase of postcolonial writing
According to postcolonial literary works, an author has an important part. There
are three levels of how postcolonial writing is seen in the literary works which are
Adopt, Adapt, and Adept.
2.6.1.
Adopt
In adopt phase of postcolonial
literature, Peter Barry in his book
"Beginning Theory'' stated that "The writer's ambition is to adopt the form as it
stands, the assumption being that it has universal validity". (2009:190)
In this phase, all postcolonial writers begin their ambition of writing
works with an unquestioning acceptance using all the form of European model.
Postcolonial
criticism
plays
role
as its main
subject
matter
of white
representations of colonial countries.
2.6.2.
Adapt
The second phase is called Adapt. "This phase aims to adapt the
European form to African subject matter, thus assuming partial rights of
intervention in the genre."(2009:190)
In this
phase, postcolonial
criticism
makes new explorations by
postcolonial writers. All about diversity, hybridity and every difference become
central. All The writers of postcolonial era put themselves not only in one
ideology but in both ideologies which are the European and the non-European.
They try to create a negotiation between the two ideologies in literary works.
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2.6.3.
Adept
The third phase of this theory is called Adept. In this phase, a
declaration of cultural independence the non-European writers remake the form
to their own characteristic and specification without any reference from the
European. All the writers put themselves in the non-European ideology.
(2009:189)