Essay Sample on Colonial Literature

To understand the constructs that inspired literary works during the colonial period, one has to step back and trace the development of literature starting from the ancient Hellenistic Greece. Primeval writers such as Homer, Hesiod, and Sophocles, created god-like characters who were, either in love or at war with each other besides showing concern for the general well-being of the immortals. There were evil gods in as much as there were good deities who strived to protect and save humankind from wickedness. In recent times, stories are told in the same tradition. Authors create heroes and villains to present challenges in which the heroic characters usually carry the day. Manichean character constructs have subsequently existed in literature in different ways. Colonial literary works - for instance - delved in the creation of superior and inferior characters, based on race and social as well religious prejudice. They presented the civilized and the uncivilized in a world of masters and savants, the haves and the have-nots. This paper focuses on how David Maalouf's book, Remembering Babylon and Foe by J.M Coteez as well as His First Ball by Witi Ihimahera remodel the Manichean characterization that epitomizes the colonial literature.

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Synopsizes - setting up the subversive platform

Remembering Babylon presents an ingenious plot whose protagonist - Gemmy Fairly - is a 13-year old British boy who finds himself cast ashore into the Aborigine's territory to the extreme northern part of Australia. The poise and resonance that characterizes the book's literary stylistic elements are deliberately calculated by the writer to create suspense. Given that the story's setup depicts the 1840s Australia - when the animosity between the British colonialists and Australia's natives (the Aborigines) had started to brew - one expects the British boy to undergo torturous death in the hands of the Aborigines. This is because when the Aborigines first laid eyes on him, what they saw the parody of a Whiteman (p. 39).

His First Ball by Witi Ihimahera is, on the other hand, a short story that revolves around an unexpected invitation that's extended to the protagonist Tuta Wharepapa. The letter is symbolical of the story's intended to mission - to act as a literary reply to Katherine Mansfield's literary discourse - He drifts from Mansfield's ideologies that peg on the Maori people during the colonial period to focus on a modern day society. He makes a literary registry of the excitements comes with the change when he uses excitement blend surprise and suspense upon receiving the letter to the dance at the government house (pg 126) Ihimahera subsequently paints the picture of new dawn the Maori people, cutting off the Manichean attributes by Mansfield.

In the Foe, Coetzee reverses the settings of Daniel Dafoe's book Robison Crusoe. In Dafoe's version, a castaway is washed ashore in a strange island - putting together a story about Whiteman who takes on Friday, a native black man, as his slave. He later abandon's the notion and sets Friday free as a brother. In Coetzee's version, the castaway washed to the strange island is a white woman. Consequently, the story looks at the scenario from an emotional perspective that reshapes modern relations as the reader sees the comparison between men from two distinct races through the eyes of Susan Burton, the castaway.

Wiping the literary Manichean slate clean

To the colonialists, the Aborigines were uncivilized and uncultured in comparison to the British. They had sailed to the Southern hemisphere continent to civilize the natives, grant them a culture and save their souls from the eternal fire by offering them a chance to live after death through Christianity. With time, Gemmy learns about the Aborigines and realizes that their society is as sophisticated as that of any other civilization. They have a strong sense of spirituality that's connected to the land supporting a diverse culture that spans across hundreds of clans as well as a social hierarchy and order. In a twist of events, the protagonist had to learn the Aboriginal way of life. And in this instance, he became the uncivilized one among the civilized. He became aware of the daily sacrifices that the Aborigines made and admired their simple way of life. He learned work with natives and experienced a communal spirit, and a sense of family that made all the wealth in the world appear insignificant (p. 43).

Ihimahera strives to wipe out Manichean notion by capturing the transitional era from a time when a black man couldn't work, dine and wine together and discuss matters on equal terms. Mrs. Simmons, a parody of the conservatives who still think of such arrangement as an impossibility is surprised at the letter of the invite and asks the protagonist whether his sure that the message didn't come to possession by default (p. 127). In the party at the elegant ballroom, Tuta was the centerpiece of attraction - suggesting a new era - one that might take some time for the general society to accept or get used to because it appeared to be a future norm in the making (p.133)

Coetzee compels the reader to think about gender and race-related issues. Foe is a story about a woman who loses hope to find her lost daughter and ends up on a strange island in a company of a man who she can't equate to her daughter at first. To Susan, it was like losing a bar of gold and finding bronze in its place. Her one year stay with Friday at the island, however, provides the opportunity to look race, culture and the notion of civilization from a different angle. She eventually sees the overrated aspects the western culture in ways that reshape the social Manichean fault lines. Her situation as a castaway makes her realize that the culture of the west is ignorant of other cultures that deem inferior because of comfort and distractions that come with modern life (p. 52). The joy and satisfaction that Friday eventually brought Susan's life made regret her Manichean thoughts and approached toward Friday's cultural inclinations, marking the beginning a relationship at level inspired by humanity and not cultural or racial prejudice (pg. 106).

Conclusion - the promise of future integration

Remembering Babylon makes a positive prophetic gesture of the coming together of the two cultures, in the post-colonial world by noting that Gemmy had become a true child of the land (Australia) as it will once be p.132. Tuta, on the other hand, ends up dancing with Joyce whose view of race and cultural difference changes in the process (p. 135). As Susan takes Friday to London with her to show her new found knowledge of how the world should be structured regarding cultural and social believes (p. 102).

Work cited

John, Coeteez. Foe. Vikings Publishers, 1986. Accessed April 27th 2018.

Malouf, David. Remembering Babylon. Chatto & Windus, 1993. Accessed April 27th 2018.

Witi, Ihimahera. His First Ball. Miss Manfield 1989, Accessed April 27th 2018.