Ethnic Literature: A Criticism

John M. Reilly writes in the essay "Criticism of Ethnic Literature: Seeing the Whole Story" that " while the assumption of ethnic literature directly reflects ethnic life denies significance to literary form, on the other hand, the simple equation of ethnic literature with other varieties of literature will sever the vital relationship of literature to life." Controversial as this statement may be, Reilly doesn't shy away from his assertions. He goes on further to write that "ethnic literature is not so designated because of the authors' race, color, creed, national origin or associations." Taken together, these statements point to a wholly critical view of ethnic literature as we've come to understand it in our class discussions.


I find Reilly interesting because it is one of the few essays I've read that isn't afraid to be critical of the ethnic literature genre. Certainly, there is a plethora of material that supports the study and writing of ethnic literature, such as Achebe or Ngugi, to name a few. While I don't know that I necessarily agree with everything that Reilly has to write, he raises interesting questions about what defines certain genres of literature. In particular, he points out typical "scheme" that serves as a map for the writing of ethnic literature, which, in Reilly's view, makes ethnic literature easier to interpret.

While I am intrigued by Reilly's criticisms of ethnic literature, it seems dangerous and ignorant to declare that all ethnic literature fits into a particular, unoriginal pattern. He neglects to recognize works that have stood out in the field of ethnic literature, or work that has stirred up the field of ethnic literature, and he limits his discussion to ethnic literature within the American landscape. Ultimately, however, I feel like it was important for me to read this essay, if only for the exposure it gave me to an alternative point of view when it comes to ethnic literature.

In response to "On Reading Ethnic Literature Now"

In reading the essay "Reading Ethnic Literature Now" by our very own literary criticism professor Peter Powers, I was struck not so much by the issues surrounding the reading of ethnic literature, but the issue of reading at all. As an English major, I confess to sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of reading another novel or essay. Each semester, I dread leaving the Messiah College bookstore with 10-12 novels, all the while contemplating the amount of time and frustration I'll put into reading each and every one of them. And yet, I continue to read, and read voraciously, not only my assigned novels but also the ones I choose simply for enjoyment or stimulation.

It is, then, astonishing to consider the lack of purposeful reading occuring in today's society. Even at the depths of my frustrations with reading I continue to read independently, an activity which often occurs at night. I indulge in a few chapters of my latest novel (it's currently Tom Wolfe)before going to sleep. I grew up in a family of readers, though I'm the only English major, and to consider that the majority of adults in American society don't ever pick up a book is, frankly, frightening.

This past summer, I read the last Harry Potter book with the same excitement as millions of other readers, from children to teenagers to adults. As someone with a particular interest in children's literature, it was encouraging to see the way children literally waited to buy the book at midnight, devouring the story with the same excitement that I imagine most kids reserve for Guitar Hero. If reading continues to be downward trend, what can account for the record-breaking consumption of J.K. Rowling's tales? Is there something special about Harry Potter that we don't see in any other form of literature? Or do the Harry Potter stories just pander to the masses as a type of literary bubblegum?

I reject the idea that Harry Potter is somehow inferior to great literary works, therefore rendering the record-breaking reading of these stories irrevelant. Reading is reading, after all, and in such dire times for literary consumption, concerned readers should be encouraged by the reading of anything with as much creativity, and, frankly, length.

All of this is not to say that I don't recognize the value of reading ethnic literature. In a previous post I discussed my concerns that the English Department at Messiah doesn't do enough to encourage the reading of ethnic literature, and I stand by that assertion. I do, however, believe that we shouldn't neglect the importance of reading, and of reading anything, in an age when reading is becoming an increasing rarity.

On the necessity (or not) of the English Department

In the essay, "On the Abolition of the English Department," by Ngugi, Liyong, and Owuor-Anyumba, a case is made for the abolition of the English Department at the University of Nairobi. In place of an English Department, Ngugi et al. propose the establishment of a Department of African Literature and Languages, which would provide courses in oral literature, Swahili literature, Modern African literature, and a selected course in European literature.

Ngugi et al. make an compelling case for their argument. They write that the "primary duty of any literature department is to illuminate the spirit animating a people, to show it meets new challenges, and to investigate possible areas of development and involvement." In offering a number of different courses that reflect the African composition, the University of Nairobi would encourage an appreciation for the history of African literature and culture. Their essay convincingly argues for a curriculum not based on European literature, which has so often been the norm for literary studies, but instead, for a curriculum that focuses on their own history and culture.

After reading the essay, I wondered what this type of literary curriculum would look like for literature departments in the United States. The English department at Messiah undoubtedly focuses primarily on English literature, with a number of my courses teaching such British authors as Shakespeare, Keats, Hardy, Donne, etc. While the United States was colonized primarily by English settlers, it would be inaccurate to say that our culture is predominantly English-based. The United States prides itself on being a melting pot, a country where different cultures live together to form a unique, cohesive culture, and yet our literature departments don't reflect our own cultural composition.

During my sophomore year of college, I took an ethnic literature course in which I read books that reflected a number of different cultural backgrounds. While the course was a literature course, it was not a part of the English department curriculum. And while I am grateful for everything I've learned in my English classes, including the various English literature courses I've had to take, there definitely seems to be some sort of disconnect between writing and literature departments and the various cultures in the United States.

It's strange for me to say that even as an English major, I wouldn't be opposed to the abolition of the "English" department at Messiah College. To call a literature/writing department an English department is to put limits on what can be taught, or what can be understand to be of any worth in the literary canon. So while I am a great advocate for the study of literature and writing, I am also an advocate for the abolition of the "English" department.

On the Issue of Otherness

I have found myself trolling the internet for this class an awful lot, an activity which has yielded an equal amount of both sites dedicated to the discussion of alien literary terms as sites that have aided my understanding of the complex concepts I've attempted to understand this semester. As I was searching for essays or articles on the subject of ethnic and post-colonial criticism, I came across an interesting little page from a Brock University professor discussing some issues in post-colonial theory.

Of the issues raised in the essay, I found the concept of otherness to be the most intriguing. John Lye, the professor who wrote the essay, asserts that post-colonial theory is "built in large part around the concept of otherness," an issue that raises such compex questions as whether or not the concept of otherness reduces numerous cultures to a single identity, as well as whether this concept of otherness portrays the Western world as orderly and rational, while the "oriental" world (to borrow Lye's term) is chaotic and irrational. In addition, Lye questions whether the use of the term otherness attempts to reclaim a fragmented past, an activity which is, in Lye's view, futile.

I found Lye's essay to be compelling for a number of reasons. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I think it's difficult to boil down issues like colonization and race into a neat package through which we can examine other texts. It's dangerous to put anything in black and white terms, especially ethnicity and issues of post-colonization. This concept of otherness, which Lye feels is so central to the argument of post-colonial criticism, is particularly difficult to deal with because it forces a number of different cultures and ethnic identities to be placed under one label. I think that it's important to respect the various identities of those who have been under colonial rule, and that includes avoiding broad labels to define post-colonial critics.

Post-colonial criticism is particularly interesting to me because of all the complexities that make up the term. Who or what writing is considered post-colonial? What does post-colonization look like in literature, or in criticism? Is it wrong to view texts through a post-colonial critical lens?

I don't claim to have all the answers, and I'm okay with that. I don't know that it's possible to ever arrive at a definitive conclusion for such complex issues, but I will continue to enjoy being challenged by such difficult concepts as otherness, whatever otherness actually means.

Problems with Post-colonialism

What's wrong with the term post-colonial lit?

For some post-colonial critics, using the term "post-colonial" to describe anything leads a writer or critic into murky waters. What authors can be included in the post-colonial canon? Is looking at literature through a post-colonial lens Eurocentric, for it limits the significance of a nation to the time it was colonized?

In a paper posted on the Washington State University website, Paul Brians addresses the controversy surrounding the use of the term "post-colonial," arguing that "more it is examined, the more the postcolonial sphere crumbles. Though Jamaican, Nigerian, and Indian writers have much to say to each other; it is not clear that they should be lumped together." Brians does, however, admit that until a better term comes along, it's difficult to avoid the "post-colonial" tag when discussing literature that deals with the culture identity of formerly colonized nations.

All of this leads me to wonder - is post-colonialism a legitimate form of literary criticism? Certainly, the literary community must have the discussions that arise from questions post-colonial critics put forth. In the same way that Marxists for Feminists seek to examine texts through the minority perspectives, so too do the post-colonial critics.

While post-colonialism is undoubtedly a more controversial form of criticism than, say, Formalism, I tend to agree with Brians that until we can find better a better term or definition, we must continue to utilize the term "post-colonial criticism" in our studies, however reluctant we may in embracing that term. Objections can be raised to any form of literary criticism, and simply because post-colonial criticism might raise more questions is no reason to ignore the field altogether. We may be uncomfortable with the direction that post-colonialism takes us, but it doesn't make the journey any less vital to our own literary understanding.

Post-colonialism Through Achebe's Eyes

As I began to engage with the critical essays on Ethnicity and Post-colonialism, I decided to revisit an essay I'd read in the past, Chinua Achebe's "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." I first encountered this essay after reading Heart of Darkness for a Post-colonial literature class, and at the time, I really struggled with how to deal with some of the ideas that Achebe puts forth.

Issues like post-colonialism can be highly sensitive, and it can be hard, for me at least, to be critical of Achebe's essay. While I don't agree with everything Achebe has to say in this essay, at the same time, I realize that my own world view is very limited, and I can never fully understand or empathize with Achebe's perspective. What I found especially hard to understand about Achebe's essay was how we all could have had it so spectacularly wrong about Heart of Darkness.

Even before I first read Heart of Darkness, I had long heard the praise for the way the novella portrayed with unflinching clarity the brutality inflicted upon the people of Africa by European settlers. After I had read Conrad's work, I viewed the story in much the same way as the critics who had praised it, admiring the way Conrad showed the evils of the European settlers, and in particular, the terrible savagery of Kurtz.

I read Achebe immediately after I first read Conrad, and the essay raised some poignant questions for me about the way Heart of Darkness portrayed Africans. Did we view them as just metaphorical tools to act as a foil for Conrad's alter ego, Marlow? Was it really the Africans portrayed as savages, not the Europeans like Kurtz?

The complexity of my current beliefs on Heart of Darkness prevent me from succinctly articulately them here, but in short, though I still don't endorse all the beliefs that Achebe puts forth, I appreciate the way Achebe has opened my mind up to alternative views. It was only after reading Achebe's essay that I first began to realize the importance of viewing texts through a different lens, examining the way different groups might approach the text in a way that is in stark contrast to my own approach.

Though controversial, Achebe is, in my opinion, a good place for one to begin their post-colonial studies. He does what the best critics do, in that he raises questions for his readers and provides an alternative viewpoint through which we may examine familiar texts.

Woman Must Write Woman.

Can women only write in the style of a "woman?" Do women have an obligation to write at all?

For Helene Cixous, the answer to both seems to be yes. Cixous writes like a general rallying her troops for battle, urging women to write for women, as women. "I write woman: woman must write woman. And man, man" she writes, rallying women to not only be readers, but writers of literature, a literature written as woman literature.

It's hard for me, as a female English major, to not be a bit moved by the words of Cixous. She is at once rational and irrational, proud, angry, and inspiring. She nails some things on the head - in particular, I really resonated with her section on why women don't write. Though I am an English major and by extension, a writer who writes not in secret but for assignment, openly and often, I have experienced much of what Cixous discusses. Did I feel my writing wasn't good? Of course. Is writing too great for me? Yes, probably. Have I written in secret before? Often enough.

What makes Cixous intriguing, then, is the way she stirs the woman writer out of this secrecy, shoving inhibition aside in favor of finding a female voice, a voice that will not, in Cixous' view, be hampered or determined by man, but will speak in spite of man. She writes, "Men have committed the greatest crime against women. Insidiously, violently, they have led them to have women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs." While I don't know that I would necessarily agree that men have caused me to hate women, I would argue in Cixous' favor that the oppression of women by men for centuries has resulted in women, and women writers especially, viewing themselves as less than they are.

Though I don't want to pursue writing after graduation, I found myself surprisingly inspired by the work of Cixous. Why shouldn't women write for woman, as woman? Going further, do we have an obligation to write for woman, as woman? While I don't think that female writers are obligated to write in any fashion, I do think it's important to female writers to be fearlessly independent, not imitating the work of men, but instead, forging out on their own as the intelligent, powerful writers they are capable of being.