Voicing Discursive Binaries: A Postcolonial Study of Gordimer’s Short Stories
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55737/qjss.933575446Keywords:
Gordimer, South Africans, Social Inequality, Voicing Discursive BinariesAbstract
Massive decolonization occurred in the 21st century. The natives and the diaspora attempted to portray the other side of the image structured by the colonial hegemonic discourse. Gordimer has written against apartheid and raised her voice to articulate the realistic picture of the marginalization faced by the suppressed South Africans in the form of racial and social inequality. She incorporates discourse to challenge the existing colonial discourse and the explicit binaries. This study attempts to investigate the challenges she has put against the existing discursive binaries in her short stories. The concepts of colonial discourse and counter-discourse given by Edward Said and Helen Tiffin serve as a framework to analyze the data collected from the selected text. The findings reveal that Gordimer has employed different techniques of narration and characterization to redress the negative image of the oppressed others in the colonial discourse through binaries. She employs various textual strategies to expose the stereotypical binaries through counter-discursive practices to dismantle the colonial assumptions from the perspective of the natives.
Downloads
References
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., Griffiths, G., Tiffin, H., & Tiffin, H. (2003). Post-Colonial Studies: the key concepts. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203449974
Babaei, M., & Fatemeh, P. (2022). “Hybridity, Mimicry, and Ambivalence: Re-Evaluation of Colonial Identity in Nadine Gordimer’s Selected Short Stories”. Research Review. 3(1), 589-596. https://doi.org/10.52868/RR/2022-3-1-1
Babaei, M., & Pourjafari, F. (2021). Living in Subalterinity: The Voiceless Others in Nadine Gordimer’s selected short stories. International Journal of English, Literature and Social Science, 6(6), 024–030. https://doi.org/10.22161/ijels.66.4
Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge; and the Discourse on Language. A. M. Sheridan Smith trans. New York, Pantheon Books. https://monoskop.org/images/9/90/Foucault_Michel_Archaeology_of_Knowledge.pdf
Ghodake, S. T. (2014). A Journey from the Shipwreck to the Salvage in Nadine Gordimer’s Selected Short Stories. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 2(6), 167–172. https://doi.org/10.13189/lls.2014.020602
Goins-Reed, M. (2019). Conflicting spaces: gender, race, and communal spheres in Nadine Gordimer’s fiction. Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 41(2), 51–60. https://doi.org/10.4000/ces.426
Gordimer, N. (1982). “A Chip of Glass Ruby”. Six Feet of the Country. UK, Penguin Books.
Gordimer, N. (1982). “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants”. Six Feet of the Country. UK, Penguin Books.
Gordimer, N. (1982). “Not for Publication”. Six Feet of the Country. UK, Penguin Books.
Gordimer, N. (1982). “Six Feet of the Country”. Six Feet of the Country. UK, Penguin Books.
King, M. (1983). Literature in southern Africa: race and history in the stories of Nadine Gordimer. Africa Insight, 13(3), 222-226. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA02562804_182
Leitch, V. B., & Cain, W. E. (Eds.). (2010). The Norton anthology of theory and criticism. WW Norton & Company.
Louvel, L. (2019). Nadine Gordimer’s strangely uncanny realistic stories: The chaos and the mystery of it all. Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 41(2), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.4000/ces.424
Sai, B. S., & Abburi, S. (2018). Hostile World of the Oppressors and the Oppressed in Select Short Stories of Nadine Gordimer. Language in India, 18(10), 266-270.
Said, E. (2010). “Orientalism”. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Vincent B. Leitch Ed. 2nd ed.,
Tiffin, H. (1987). Post-colonial literatures and counter-discourse. Kunapipi, 9(3), 16-34.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Nazeen Zahra, Qurratulain Najeeb Jamal, Shamshad Rasool
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
