Post-colonial Cultural Identity in Ondaatje’s The English Patient
Abstract
Postcolonial criticism examines society and literary culture together to reject the Eurocentric view of indigenous literature and culture which it is the literature of. This study employs Franz Fanon’s expression of cultural identity to figure out the postcolonial literary culture that makes readers realize the considerable determinations of post-colonial subject; hence, retrieves the lost cultural identities of post-colonial subject in the wake of World War II. This emphasis on the cultural identity of the post-colonial subject also explores the Eurocentric ignorance of colonized cultural history – social and cultural embedment. This issue of cultural identity wherein postcolonialism dares to delve is the locus of this research, which argues how the post-colonial subjects in The English Patient adopt a new form of their cultural identities by escaping the stereotypes about their names, bodies and birthplaces.
Authors
Nafees Parvez
M. Phil, Department of English, Govt. College University Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Asma Haseeb Qazi
Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages Islamabad, Pakistan
Kanza Umer Khan
Lecturer, Department of English, Govt. College University Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
Keywords
Culture, Eurocentrism, Identity, Postcolonialism, World War I