Home, Hybridity and (Post) colonial Discourse in Caryl Phillips’s A State of Independence
In: The Politics of English as a World LanguageSearch for other papers by Petra Tournay in
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Abstract
Homi Bhabha defines the concept of hybridity as that moment when colonial discourse exhibits traces of the language of the Other, thus enabling the critic to trace complex movements of disarming alterity in the colonial text. I will argue that the same process applies the other way round: the post-colonial text exhibits traces of the language of the Other, that is traces of colonial rhetorical strategies. As a direct consequence of ‘psychological’ or ‘cultural’ colonization, this interaction of discourses seems to be most notoriously foregrounded in the so-called narratives of return. Building on various theories surrounding the notions of ‘home’ and ‘hybridity’ this essay will explore the particular discursive strategies employed in an exemplary narrative of return. Caryl Phillips’s novel A State of Independence (1986) is presented from the perspective of an African-Caribbean homecomer – equipped with ‘imperial eyes’ (Pratt) – whose nostalgic dream of home reifies into an extremely problematic experience. In my essay I will attempt to show that the particular narrative and discursive strategies employed in the text are prime indicators of the hybrid nature both of the migrant or diasporic subject and his discourse.