Most Important Post Colonial Literary Terms

Post Colonial Literature is full of literary terms which are hard to find. I myself as a student find it very hard to find these terms therefore I have collected 18 most important and widely used terms with examples for the students to study and take help from my research. Here are the literary terms Most Important Post Colonial Literary Terms

1. Postcolonial:

             Meriam Webster defines post colonial as “being time after colonialism”. Post colonial is an adjective which defines the time after colonialism. Colonialism is the policy of a country seeking to extend its authority over people and territories. But in late 20^th century all colonial countries were forced to retreat and all the colonies gained independence. So, the thing related to the era after colonialism is called postcolonial. The word is invoked in a wider variety of contexts for post colonial theory, postcolonial era, postcolonial psychology etc.

2. Colonial:

           Colonial is also an adjective which defines something related to a colony or colonies .This is derived from word colonialism which means control by one power over a dependant area or people. The word colonial also defines the era of colonialism in which many countries like England, America and Japan were involved in colonialism in which they extended their areas as governed other countries on the basis of power, but in late 20^th century after World War 2 all these colonies got freedom.

3. Imperial:

            The word Imperial is also an adjective which means something related to an empire. From word imperial “imperialism” is derived which means “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and domination of a nation especially by the direct territorial acquisitions or by getting indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas. ( Meriam Webster) By practicing imperialism many countries in the 18-20^th century spread their empire through power and made many colonies in Asia and Africa.

4. Diaspora:

         The word Diaspora came from Greek word “disperio” meaning to scatter. It was used to refer the people of dominant countries who used to emigrate to the conquered countries to colonize other parts of world. There are two types of diaspora, force and voluntary. In modern vocabulary the word has been used specifically for Jewish Diaspora, which means depression of Jews among the Gentiles and scattering of Jewish, countries in exile outside Palestine or present day Israel. After that the Jews dispersed throughout the world in first and second diaspora throughout the world.

5. Orient:

          The word orient is defined by Dictionary.com as “the countries of Asia, especially eastern Asia” .It is the antonym of Occident which means the western world. Edward Said wrote his famous book Orientalism in 1974 in which he defines orient as a certain specific view of middle East.

6. Occident:

              Cambridge dictionary defines occident as “the western part of world especially the countries of Europe and America”. Orient and Occident simply mean east and west.

7. Orientalist:

          Edward Said developed the word Orientalism to describe Europeon portray the orient as inferior and uncivilized. So, orientalist is a person, who supports Orientalism, he sees Asia and Arab as inferior, uncivilized and weird simultaneously believing the Europeans to be civilized and superior. Orientalism is a view which portrays a single spectrum of image by only watching the things which he wants to see, simply we can say that it is a racist belief and the orietalist is a racist.  

8. Occidentalist:

         Occidentalist is a person who supports Occidentalism. Occidentalism is the perception of non westerners about west how they think and present west. It is the opposite of Orientalist.

9. Binary Opposition:

         A Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure gave the theory of semiotics and its basic principle is opposition.  In language the meaning is understood by its opposition and the same thing applies in literature .Binary opposition is a pair of terms which are opposite to each other and their opposition their meanings are strictly defined. We can never find a literary piece in which there is no binary oppositions, there would be no piece of art without good and evil, hero and vilan, romanticism and realism etc.

10. Us and Them:

             This has been the mindset of Americans from the very beginning. There has not been a time when the Americans have not seen bunch of other people or group as inferior to them there would always be a us Vs them in their mind either the them are other nationalities or there may be native Americans, African Americans, Muslims, and so on. Us and them is also a mindset of binary opposition in which people distinguish them as something superior and better than any other group. This has been the mindset of Europeans too for the Easterners.

11. White man’s Burden”

               It is phrase to describe the burden of work or the duty of white people (mostly the colonizers) to manage the affair of black people who belong to less developed areas. Through imperialism in the time of 18^th -19^th century many European countries colonized Asian and African countries so, the duty to take care of these black and brown people was termed as white man’s burden.

12. Feminism:

              Feminism is an ideology that believes in equality of gender. Feminists seek to get equal social, political and economic rights for women.  The word feminism refers to actions that promote changes in society to end traits which disadvantage women. People were not familiar with the word before Mary Wollstonecraft book “A Vindication of Rights of Women” a century after her book this word came on front line. This book is thought to be the first strongest book on feminism and women rights. But 19^th century is thought to b the golden century for feminism as many great writers like Jane Austen and Virginia wolf wrote classic works of arts about feminism.

13.  Patriarchy:

                The word patriarchy represents a social system in which all resources, like land, cash etc are owned by the father or a male head of family. Pariarchy is a society in which male dominates and misuse women. And as a whole has absolute authority over the community. Power gives privilege so in a partiarchial society men are privileged over women.

14. Matriarchy:

             Matriarchy is a social system or government where women hold the main power and control. In matriarchy woman hold the political, social, moral or judicial power. Example of matriarcial society can be seen in Akan people of Ghana where women decide and control most of the things of daily life like politics and inheritance .Unlike patriarchy pure form of matriarchy is not present in any corner of the world.

15. Misogyny:

          Misogyny is defined as the hatred for women. It is form of sexual discrimination and opperasision of woman in man dominated society. In this ideology women are given less opportunities and are thought to be inferior to man therefore they are treated like infidels.

16. Misandry:

           Misandry is defined as the hatred for man or boys. It can be manifested in many ways like belittle of boy, violence, social discrimination etc. Misandry is often seen in response of misogyny and the extreme feminist tend to show hatred for man.

17. Negritude:

          Negritude is the pride in cultural and physical aspects of Africans. The literary movement started in Paris in 1930s and 1940s by Black French writers. The movement is marked by rejection of European colonization, pride in blackness, their cultural heritage and African values.

18. BBCDs:

           BBCD is an acronym which stands for British born confused desis. This is a term used by Indians who born in Britain but belong to India so they cannot completely follow the customs of one coutry so they are neither British nor a desi.