The Effect of Colonial Symbolism in Selected Works by Afro-Caribbean Writers

Abstract

This study aims at interpreting the symbolical implications of colonialism in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Mongo Beti’s The Poor Christ of Bomba, Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women and Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge. The study will follow a close reading of the selected novels’ plot and discourse. The fictional discourse is conveyed by the author in a symbolical manner in order to achieve certain effect on the reading audience. The study is going to approach the discourse elements regarding the masters and slaves depicted in the novel. For this reason, the fictional characters will be interpreted for the sake of securitizing colonialism and its sequences. These sequences identify the sense of change brought about hegemonic colonialism in the selected novels. Moreover, the fictional characters will be interpreted in the light of the colonial atmosphere dominating the fictional plots. Such plots represent the authorial critique of colonialism and its negative influence upon the colonized people.

Keywords: Colonialism, Discourse, Hegemony, Symbolism