Realm of the unfree : representations, limitations & implications of 'identity' in postcolonialist and imperialist literature

Abstract

This thesis peruses the possibility of hybrid identity reconciliation in a postcolonial framework. Questions central to this thesis are what are the enduring traumas ensuing out of colonialism? what are the limitations to reconciling the chasm between colonizer and colonized? and how does the hybrid identity interrupt the cycle of internalized subjugation to escape the colonial disease and emancipate both colonial and colonizer in the process? This body of work lists the complexes engendered by colonialism, expounds on the colonial status quo and argues for decolonial humanism are a reconciliatory space. Hybrid identity traumas are thoroughly examined in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions, Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin and Diana Abu-Jaber’s Arabian Jazz. Investigating reconciliation within the hybrid identity is invaluable in a world where hybridity is an increasing phenomenon which proves to be turbulent and disruptive when allowed to run without check. The hybrid identity is only be able to forgive the colonized when it ceases to see its original state as inferior. Similarly, it can only forgive the colonizer when superiority is dismantled, reparations are made and perpetrators are held to account. In my thesis I intend to argue that this is how the hybrid identity reconciles itself and enters a seamless state where its identity/divinity is not tied to past states or future endeavors, but to an enduring over-arching transcendentalism