Postcolonial Writings of
George Orwell
and Derek Walcott

Postcolonial Literature

Literature by or about formerly colonized populations

Examines the complex legacy of imperialism

Gives a voice to indigenous people disenfranchised and marginalized by imperial power

Orwell Biographical Overview

Born Eric Blair in India (1903) but educated in England

1922—returned to India to join Imperial Police of Burma

Biographical Overview

Imperialist experience made him recognize the abuses of British imperialism

1927—returned to Europe determined to resist despotism

Worked to alleviate conditions of poor and resist fascism

Lived as street tramp

Fought in Spanish Civil War (1937)

Broadcast for the BBC in World War II

Biographical Overview

Satirized Stalin’s communist regime in Animal Farm

Warned against a totalitarian future (“Big Brother”) for Britain in 1984

Died of tuberculosis in 1950

Orwell Central Artistic Concepts

Brutally honest political satire against totalitarianism

Contempt for political ideologies and recognition of their potential for oppression

Recognized language’s power as a tool of oppression

“Shooting An Elephant” p. 2457

Critiques imperialism from the imperialist’s perspective

Reveals “the real motives for which despotic governments act” (p. 2458)

Colonizers as well as colonized people become victims of imperial policy (p. 2459-60)

Shooting the elephant becomes a metaphor for colonial violence

Walcott Biographical Overview

Born on Caribbean island St. Lucia, part of British West Indies (gained independence in 1979)

Product of Caribbean’s hybrid culture—French, British, Indian, African

Mixed ethnic background—descended from both white colonialists and African slaves

Won Nobel Prize for Literature (1992)

Slide 9

Walcott Central Artistic Concepts

Cultural schizophrenia and psychic fragmentation

Search for identity in a fragmented postcolonial/postmodern culture

Struggle to reconcile European and Caribbean cultures

Slide 11

“A Far Cry from Africa” p. 2580

Imagery suggests horror at the violence of both imperialists and colonized people (stanzas 1 & 2)

Colonialism inspires a legacy of violence

Ambivalent response to his divided heritage as a colonial subject (lines 25-33)


	Literature by or about formerly colonized populations
	Examines the complex legacy of imperialism
	Gives a voice to indigenous people disenfranchised and marginalized by imperial power


	Born Eric Blair in India (1903) but educated in England
	1922—returned to India to join Imperial Police of Burma


	Imperialist experience made him recognize the abuses of British imperialism
	1927—returned to Europe determined to resist despotism
	Worked to alleviate conditions of poor and resist fascism
		Lived as street tramp
		Fought in Spanish Civil War (1937)
		Broadcast for the BBC in World War II


	Satirized Stalin’s communist regime in Animal Farm
	Warned against a totalitarian future (“Big Brother”) for Britain in 1984
	Died of tuberculosis in 1950


	Brutally honest political satire against totalitarianism
	Contempt for political ideologies and recognition of their potential for oppression
	Recognized language’s power as a tool of oppression


	Critiques imperialism from the imperialist’s perspective
	Reveals “the real motives for which despotic governments act” (p. 2458)
	Colonizers as well as colonized people become victims of imperial policy (p. 2459-60)
	Shooting the elephant becomes a metaphor for colonial violence


	Born on Caribbean island St. Lucia, part of British West Indies (gained independence in 1979)
	Product of Caribbean’s hybrid culture—French, British, Indian, African
	Mixed ethnic background—descended from both white colonialists and African slaves
	Won Nobel Prize for Literature (1992)


	Cultural schizophrenia and psychic fragmentation
	Search for identity in a fragmented postcolonial/postmodern culture
	Struggle to reconcile European and Caribbean cultures


	Imagery suggests horror at the violence of both imperialists and colonized people (stanzas 1 & 2)
	Colonialism inspires a legacy of violence
	Ambivalent response to his divided heritage as a colonial subject (lines 25-33)