Browsing by Subject "Historical novel"
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Item Critique of Colonialist Ideology in Achebe’s Arrow of God(Department of English, 2017) Bhattarai, TulashaAchebe’sArrow of Godresists the colonial thrust by using a form of historical novel, which takes its central theme for what George Lukacs called ‘downfall of gentile society’.Achebe appeals his characters to resist against the colonial rule. InArrow of God, Achebe has presented the rebellious characters. His goal to present the rebellious characters is to promote and preserve the native values, emotions feelings, rituals, and religions. In the novel, Ezeulu’s wife Ugoye strongly resists against the vision of the killing the python. She says that the culture regards the python as their own kinsman. Therefore, when the white colonizers try to kill or destroy the python or snake, Ugoye strongly resistsagainst it. Chinua Achebe presents Ugoye as a rebellious character to preserve the native’s values and religions.Achebe claims that the natives are not ready to tolerate any kind of hegemony of foreigners in the culture of natives. Ujiugo strongly rejectsthe idea of her brother Oduche to kill a snake called python.Finally,Achebe as a postcolonial writer strongly resists against the British administration ruling in Nigeria through his novelArrow of God.Item The Treatment of History in Gita Mehta's Raj(Department of English, 2010) Baral, Dilli RamGita Mehta in her historical fiction Raj critiques colonialist as well as nationalist historiography because of their use of elitist approach to the early twentieth century Indian history. In this novel she points out the blind spots of both of these historiographies. She opines that colonialist historiography unnecessarily valorizes colonization as a civilizational mission and ignores the suffering of the colonized. Likewise, Indian nationalist historiography is also guided by the politics of inclusion and exclusion, i.e. Hindus are treated as 'us' and non-Hindus as 'them'. So, the voices of the people from other religion are deliberately ousted. Besides, it is Indian National Congress's version of historiography which is written from the perspective of the elites like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and so on. Therefore, in order to rewrite the histories of the marginalized people such as females, peasants, factory workers, Gita Mehta advocates for postcolonial subaltern historiography in Raj. For Mehta, the subaltern people in terms gender, class, caste, ethnicity can raise their voice in the historical fiction like Raj because it is written from the perspective of the subaltern people.