Deconstructing the “writing back” motif with Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea: Can postcolonial writers dismantle colonial literary narratives?

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to discern whether Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise are “writing back” to the English and European colonial empires and their literary canons, specifically to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Foundational postcolonial literary theories from books and academic journals provide context to the efficacy of Rhys and Gurnah’s writing back: such as Edward Said’s Orientalism, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s idea of the Subaltern, and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. Furthermore, the research also relies on Chinua Achebe’s theory of abrogation and appropriation of the English language as a means of resistance and taking back agency by the colonised subjects. Upon assessing these books, book chapters, and articles, the research finds that Rhys and Gurnah are in fact not writing back to any colonial empire or writer; Rhys writes for a feminist Creole identity, and Gurnah writes to help establish the African literary tradition.