In today’s class, the first presentation regarding Ireland and nationalism framed the subsequent presentations and discussions adequately. Michelle suggested in her presentation that Joyce’s work contrasted with the notion that nationalism is part of a natural progression following colonialism and decolonialisation. Joyce’s work instead presents nationalism as an assertion of individuality which is a culmination [...]
Entries Tagged as 'orwell'
Notes and such for 12th November
November 12, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Tags: Crisis of identity·Crisis of Knowledge·crisis of representation·daniel soh·Joyce·orwell·portrait·shooting an elephant
Inscrutability of the colony
October 28, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Leonard Woolf’s autobiographical account in Growing reminded me of Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’, in that they both highlight the white man’s increasing sense of alienation and unease in the colony. Woolf’s recounts his life in Ceylon as a civil servant stating that there “always retained for [him] a tinge of theatrical unreality”. This reminds me [...]
Tags: a passage to india·charmaine tan·Growing·Leonard Woolf·orwell·shooting an elephant
Binaries, Power and Imperialism
October 22, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
In Stoler’s discussion of the ways in which power is manifested and created in Empire, she identifies how the assertion of dominance is linked to ideas of gender binaries and sex. She identifies for us the different “roles” and images of figures in the colonial discourse; namely, the white colonial ruler bursting with “good health, [...]
How White women aggravated the inter-racial divide
October 21, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
In Burmese Days, Orwell foregrounds how white women perform the roles of ‘segregators’ and reinforce the inter-racial divide between the whites and natives. Mrs. Lackersteem is constantly enforcing some sort of surveillance upon her husband, never letting him ‘out of her sight for more than one or two hours’, after having caught him drunk with [...]
Tags: Burmese Days·Empire·orwell
Notes on Burmese Days (Week 9, Part I)
October 19, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
TOPIC OF CLASS In their presentation, Jingxuan and Frederick focused on the discourses of Power in Orwell’s Burmese Days and how these discourses reinforce each other insecuring the dominant ideology of the Imperial hegemony. 1. Jingxuan, in the first half of the presentation, explored the theoretical framework of power in Burmese Days by borrowing Michel [...]
Tags: Burmese Days·female·Foucault·Hegel·Master/Slave dialectic·Note-taking·orwell·power·praseeda nair·presentation·Seshagiri·sexual aggression and rape
English Club and performation of the ‘white’ identity
October 14, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Throughout the novel, Orwell frequently uses the symbol of the English Club as a locus of actions where the perfomation of identity as a pukka sahib is most ostensible and the English men and women in Burma constantly reinforce each other’s ‘whiteness’ and superiority over the Burmese. It is important to note that in spite [...]
Tags: Burmese Days·orwell·Peiyi
No Exit in ‘Burmese Days’
October 14, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
While Stoler’s article was an interesting read, I’ll like to put it aside for this post and comment on something I found rather striking in Orwell’s Burmese Days. In my opinion, Flory’s suicide at the end echoes Konstantin’s one in Chekhov’s play The Seagull. I don’t know if Orwell had Chekhov in mind when writing [...]
Tags: Burmese Days·dystopia·orwell·pngyuxin
Laughter as the Best Anti-Colonial Medicine
October 8, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Orwell is very aware of the ambivalence of colonial discourse and the contradiction of Whiteness, especially with regard to aggression. He expresses his own ambivalence as a unit in the colonial machine, reaffirming the imperial ideology, while thinking that “imperialism was an evil thing”. When Orwell implies Whiteness, he speaks of it as a technicality, [...]
Tags: Anti-Colonial·Empire·Hegemony·Ideology·Laughter·orwell·praseeda nair·shooting an elephant·Subversive act
Rule of colonial difference backfires!
October 8, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
In Chatterjee’s article, we are introduced to the concept of the “rule of colonial difference-of representing the “other” as inferior and radically different, and hence incorrigibly inferior” (33). In the article, we understand this concept via its application by the colonizer to the colonized. In other words, the Englishman employs the rhetoric of colonial difference [...]
Shooting An Elephant: Chaos, Order & Violence
October 8, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
I think Shooting An Elephant very nicely illustrates the theme of Chaos, Order and Violence. Chaos wreaked by the “mad elephant” requires the police officer to “do something about it”, so as to restore order and prevent the elephant from causing anymore havoc to property and man. However, it is ironic that the only way [...]
Tags: chaos·Charlene Ong·colonialism·Fanon·guilt·orwell·shooting an elephant·Violence
The Reluctant Imperialist?
October 8, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
What struck me in my reading of short story was the reluctance of the narrator in carrying out his role as the white imperialist. He waffles between being “theoretically […] for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” and being a stoic white imperialist, one that the natives will never laugh at. In [...]
race, image and power
October 7, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
What really intrigued me when i read Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, is the depiction of an inversed power struggle. So often we come across texts in the module that emphasize on the oppressive nature of colonization and the silenced position of the natives, but Orwell is able to present a different aspect of this power [...]
Tags: orwell·Peiyi·shooting an elephant
The demands of carrying a gun
October 7, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Whilst I was reading the article by Chatterjee, what struck me most was that Smith said that the natives “crave for a government by a person to whom they can render royal homage”. Reflecting upon it, it seems almost as though the Indians, with their rigid caste system and rules which were thought to be not based on [...]
Tags: orwell·Rebekah Yeo·shooting an elephant·the nation and its fragments by Partha Chatterjee
