RECLAIMING THROUGH RETELLING: THEORIZING CARIBBEAN CULTURAL IDENTITY THROUGH TWENTIETH-CENTURY CARIBBEAN RETELLINGS OF WESTERN LITERARY CLASSICS
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Date
2023
Authors
Smith, Jacob
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Throughout the 20th century, many of the territories colonized by once expansive European empires began to resist their colonial powers. Military resistance, peaceful diplomacy, non-violent civil disobedience, cultural movements, political revolutions, and more decolonial action pervaded this period that has since become known as the beginning of postcolonialism. One tool that theorists, politicians, and activists used during this period to realize their visions of postcolonial futures was literature. The focus of this thesis is to examine just one literary strategy used by postcolonial authors—that of retelling the Western literary canon from the perspective of the colonized—to assess its impact on and value to a specific postcolonial region, the Caribbean. To do so, I examine three 20th-century Caribbean texts which depart from and reimagine a work or works from the Western literary canon. I argue that Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest, Derek Walcott’s Omeros, and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea each depart from a work or works from the Western literary canon to simultaneously resist colonialism, imagine decolonial futures for the region, and theorize Caribbean cultural identity. By placing these three texts in conversation with the works of 20th-century Caribbean cultural theorists and postcolonial theorists like Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, and others, I seek to show the unique and multifaceted value of retelling Western literary classics in the Caribbean.
Description
97 pages
Keywords
English, Literature, Caribbean, Culture, Retelling