Post Colonial Readings
Post Colonial Readings
Post Colonial Readings
23 March, 2017
Every human being needs to have their own identity, need to have their right of
independence. When people do not find their own identity, they always meet troubles as in they
are oppressed. It refers to the age of colonization, where a nation is colonized or literally
dominated by another nation. The nation who is colonized, are always deprived of their vital
needs. In a nutshell, one has the authority over many by dehumanizing people in terms of their
political power, economic power and so on. Colonist always had their mind of racism and
women were the secondary citizen of the society. This is a matter of individual’s independence,
Post-colonialism explores the attempt to strip away the crisis of identity, feminism, racism and
many things which was the reason of trouble for colonized people. “Orientalism as a western
style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the orient” (Said). Edward Said
sees the colonialist in a positive way that they are restructuring the nation and teaching thing by
dominance. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel portrays the theme of political satire which comments on
dehumanizing, the injustices of politics, and some surprisingly frank physical descriptions what
represents colonialism. Swift does not try to change the system but he attempt to find out flaws
The purpose of this paper is to interpret the novel Gulliver’s Travel from the lenses of
post colonialism theory. In order to do that, I will focus on issues of orientalism, placement and
Gulliver’s Travel narrates the story of Lemuel Gulliver and his voyages around the world.
He experiences different types of culture. Swift satirically portrays the state of European
government. How they are colonizing other nation, how they are dehumanizing people by their
The post-colonial concept of place and displacement leading to identity crisis is evident
in the novel. The fact of place and displacement is inherently related and almost always featured
in postcolonial writings. The term displacement is a key term in post-colonial theory which can
essence, it refers both to physical displacement and a sense of being socially, culturally and
mentally out of place. Bill Ashcroft shares his view of placement and displacement theory of
identity crisis,
here that the special post-colonial crisis of identity comes into being; [...] a valid and
active sense of self may have been eroded by dislocation resulting from migration, the
Or it may have been destroyed by cultural denigration, the conscious and unconscious
Here, he says that how migration of one place to another place can cause of identity crisis which
can cause the enslavement of people as those people who migrate. As different place has
different norms, values and culture of their own, one person cannot meet all culture together.
This can be found in post-colonial literature what talks about how identity is in crisis because of
migration. Jonathan swift represents this concept in Gulliver’s Travel of Gulliver’s Character. As
four parts of novel talks about four different places and obviously they have four different
cultures. So, Gulliver does not have any idea about their culture. Firstly, he goes to the voyage of
liliputian where people are only six inch tall and Gulliver sees as giant to them. Liliputians locks
Gulliver in the cell. Gulliver has to survive to cope with the liliputians. Here, he faces the crisis
of his own identity and finally got the trust of liliputians. Moreover, A Voyage to Brobdingnag
shows the opposite. People are huge in size and Gulliver is in size of tiny. Gulliver is captured by
a farmer who displays him as a circus wonder at local fairs. Gulliver doesn’t know their culture
and doesn’t know how to behave with these people and faces troubles which are a matter of
identity crisis. The farmer's daughter teaches Gulliver to speak the language and the two become
good friends. The farmer sells the Gulliver to the queen of Brobdingnag. Because of Gulliver’s
size, he faces a series of troubles and physical misadventures. Once, he is taken into the country
and allowed to walk around a meadow on his own. Poor Gulliver has not yet learned the limits of
his size in Brobdingnag and is attacked by cow dung in the path and survives to save his life.
Here, Swift portrays the context of colonization and post-colonization in the concept of
placement and displacement in Swift’s time. The sense of displacement may have extracted from
migration, enslavement or meeting the different new cultures. When colonists like British
colonized many nations and structured their own value over other, colonized people faces the
problem of their own identity as they meets new different culture from their culture. For
Riad 4
example, when British colonized Indian sub-continent they structured many values and norms to
the sub-continent and they tried to establish their culture and language. Indian sub-continent’s
people were in a crisis of individuality of their own culture and language and they had to fight
for it. This feature comes up with the broader concept which questions the post-colonial crisis of
identity. Here in Gulliver’s travel, we can find the same thing like enslavement when he is
displayed in the circus and going to different voyage and meeting different cultures also depicts.
People were not independent enough likewise Gulliver which also marks the question of identity
or individuality. So, this concept of Place and displacement is reflected in Gulliver’s Travel by
both “politics” and “culture” in a rapidly globalizing world; Said also questions how cultural
power and privilege determines modern identity. For uncivilized nation orientalism is made.
Mostly Asian nations, especially the Middle East is in the list. These countries behavior, values
and cultures are seeing as uncivilized and backward. The way of speaking, the way of
communicating with others and the norms and values of that society is seen as uncivilized
structure. Orientalism is itself a discourse that focused on the power, knowledge, representation
and the various Postcolonial issues. Orient is a set of imagination, values, ideas, geographical
locations which can be seen as the result of many attempts to explain self-identity in terms of
making an Orient or we can say that orient is a concept structured and established by colonists.
Jonathan Swift depicts the concept of orientalism in Gulliver’s travels Gulliver character. In
Gulliver’s travel, has four different voyages where he produces quite suitable name for him by
creating them as horses, giants, little people and savages. They are not quite simple not like the
Riad 5
common man. Once he has made this distinction, he is ready to Orientalize their culture so that it
conforms to stereotypes suitable for western assimilation. Here, Gulliver offers an Orientalized
portrait of both the Lilliputians and Brobdingang. Orientalism, after all, "is nothing more than a
structure of lies and myths" (Said 6). As a colonialist and orientalist, Gulliver has no choice of
doing something else but to employ orientalism. As he does not have any idea about the values
and norms of Lilliputians and Brobdingang, he cannot make proper communication with them
and starts interpreting the foreigners he meets. In regard to the Lilliputians, Gulliver's first act of
Orientalism is to deny them their individuality. When he finds himself in the Lilliputians voyage,
he literally laughs to them. He thinks that this small species what are they doing with me as they
are tying Gulliver and sentence him to cell. Gulliver thinks Lilliputians as little people which
cause to deny their individuality and their own identity. So, Gulliver starts surviving there to
Orientalize Lilliputian’s culture. When Gulliver properly orientalizes their culture, he has been
independent to the land of Lilliputians. He roams around the land and gets the trust of king and
everyone in the land and Lilliputians start loving Gulliver. Edward W. Said describes orientalism
as a critique of the study of the orient and its ideology. Said examines the historical, cultural and
political views of the east that are held by the west and examines how they developed and where
they came from. He basically traces the various views and perception back to the colonial period
of British and European domination in the Middle East. The relationship and issues between the
Orient (East) and Occident (West) are the main points to discuss in Said‘s Orientalism. As
Gulliver himself is British, we see him impose his own culture to Lilliputians. When Lilliputians’
political problems start, we see Gulliver to make a deal with enemies for keeping peace. On the
other hand, in regard to Brobdingang, Gulliver is in the major trouble because he is simply a
little people to them likewise Lilliputians is in front of Gulliver. Brobdingang people laughs at
Riad 6
him as he is tiny in size to them and the display him in circus. When he Orientalizes their norms,
values, ways of speaking and communicating and their culture, he is ready to change his thinking
as he need to be like Brobdingang people. Gulliver as colonized people has to Orientalize the
Brobdingang people’s work from the oriental language into his own language to adopt. As said
focuses on language, translating works from the oriental languages into European languages.
They thought translating various works from the native languages into their own. They believed
themselves to be superior to others. The orient existed to be ruled and dominated what happens
Orientalist discourses become a political tool for educating and directing its practitioners
62).
Here, he explains that how orientalism is related to the political and cultural contexts and asking
for adopting methodologies of other to restructure and establish an object. When British came to
Indian sub-continent, they were pretty much unaware of their culture. They adopt their culture,
Orientalize it and start their domination over the people. The colonized observes two somewhat
distinct views of the worlds: that of the colonizer (conqueror) and that of himself/herself, the
colonized; to what culture does this person belong? It refers to double consciousness. At first,
Gulliver did not fit in with the Lilliputians, but then they became very hospitable, even risking
Riad 7
famine from their land to provide for him. So, Gulliver properly orientalized Lilliputians. They
impose their own values and norms to the colonized country as we know that orientalism also
means restructuring the uncivilized nation and establishing or constructing that culture. In Indian
sub-continent, people were much uncivilized. They did not have any idea of dress up sense,
communication sense with others and many things as mentioned before. British people
restructured this and they started using the English language. From that time, English is spoken
as western language, civilized people use this language. We have recorded this thought in our
mind. Said points out the errors in the ways of these early colonialist. Said wants the study to
focus on the human experience of cultures and societies which is shown in Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travel that Gulliver is having the experience of different cultures and societies by travelling four
different voyages.
post-colonial theory. Gulliver's colonialist crisis was merely a manifestation of Swift's own crisis
in regards to England and Ireland. Gulliver’s Travel cannot be understood if Swift himself does
not have any idea of crisis in colonial and post-colonial time. Swift himself is colonized by
British. He knows better, how colonization comes to a matter of identity crisis. Perhaps the
closing remarks of Zach's essay will shed light on Swift's colonial crisis:
Swift's wish to be buried at Holyhead, the bleak port in the middle of nowhere, midway
between Dublin and London, is like the hyphen in Anglo-Irish, indicating Swift's
alienation from both worlds, his painful oscillation between his English and his Irish
identities, between allegiance to the colonialists and the colonized. (Zach 99)
Riad 8
Here, Zach said that Swift was colonists and colonized likewise Gulliver’s character in
Gulliver’s Travel and a victim of discourse that made the British Empire. Swift beautifies
is Irish and that was colonized by British. He successfully portrays this because he has the
To summing up, the discussion about the Orientalism and placement and displacement
theory of identity crisis in the reference to Swift’s Gulliver’s travel is clearly shown the post-
colonial context. Swift portrays this in context of his time when Irish is colonized by British
people. How they orientalized and how they face the problem of identity crisis because of
migration, enslavement is referring to Gulliver’s Travel. Throughout this essay, I have looked
upon Gulliver’s Travels using the theory of displacement and orientalism to show how Swift was
aware of identity crisis and orientalism in his time and he illustrates this through the character of
Lemeul Gulliver.
Riad 9
Work Cited:
2. Zach, Wolfgang. "Jonathon Swift and Colonialism." Reading Swift: Papers from The
Second Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift. Eds. Richard H. Rodino and Hermann J.
Real. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1993. 91-99.
4. Ashcroft, Bill and Pal Ahuwalia. Routledge critical thinkers: Edward said. New York:
Routledge Publication, 2007.
6. Swift, Jonathan, and Robert DeMaria. Gulliver's Travel. London: Penguin, 2003.