The Postcolonial Cultural Identities of Individuals and Nations Essay

The Postcolonial Cultural Identities of Individuals and Nations - Essay Example Therefore it is possible to read E.M Forster’s novel A Passage to India, written many years before the Indian independence, as a text that represents both colonial and postcolonial sentiments. Derek Walcott’s long poem ‘The Schooner Flight’ deals with the complex cultural aspects of identity and nationalism in the colonial Caribbean islands. Edwards Said’s thoughtful analysis of the ways in which the West has constructed an orient that suits their colonial needs has left an indelible impression in the cultural discourses prevalent in the latter phase of the previous century. He exposed how the West conveniently constructed the misconceptions of cultural stereotypes for their benefit. Such cultural labeling and role-fixing had been a part of the dominant colonial discourses that misrepresented the history and culture of colonized nations. In his view, â€Å"the Orient was almost a European invention and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences† (1). Chinua Achebe tries to deconstruct the popular notions of the false notions of innate inferiority and cultural dependence of once-colonized nations to the colonizers. His responses to the brash comments by the Western critics aimed at the emerging postcolonial literature are laden with a judicious blend of intelligent arguments and indigenous cultural sentiments. Contesting the accusation that writers like him have been imitating the Western forms of cultural discourses, he observes: The colonialist critic, unwilling to accept the validity of sensibilities other than his own, has made a particular point of dismissing the African novel.