Study Guide for the Examination on Post-Colonial Literature

This examination will cover Neruda, Lispector, and Achebe. It will have multiple choice items, matching items, and two identifications.

Neruda (Chilean, 1904-1973) "Stationary Point," "Ode to an Artichoke" and "Clenched Soul": Read the poems repeatedly so that you have a clear memory of their specific set of images, especially the ones on which we focused in class discussion. If you read the poems and find a word you don't know, look up its definition. Any words contained in the poems will not be defined for you during the testing period.

Lispector (Brazilian) "The World's Smallest Woman" (1960) : Re-read the story. Use the powerpoint to help you see the key issues. Be aware of the range of responses the French reading public has to the newspaper picture of the Pigmy woman. Know the defense mechanisms and the way of accomplishing imperial subjectivity in Marcel Pretre. Know how the woman resists being co-opted for imperial purposes. Be aware of the complexity of the narrative voice—ironic with hints of the implied meaning underlying it.

Achebe (Nigerian) Things Fall Apart (1958): Go through your novel looking for the general order of events and the key moments of transformation of the people. Be aware of the history of the colonialization of Nigeria—the missionaries' complicity with the commercial interests, the cultural genocide and the white supremacy that fueled it, the structure of Igbo cosmology as it organized tribal unity, the mechanisms whereby that unity was destroyed. Be aware of the reading of Okonkwo as a tragic hero, his tragic flaw of his fear of weakness, his over-reaching, his excess as contrasted to his foil Obierika, his fall as emblematic of the damage done to the Igbo people. Be aware of the ways in which Achebe balances realism with this tragic plotline. Know how Achebe reveals both the cultural richness of the Igbo and the cultural gaps that inspire rebellion in characters who don't benefit from or fit within the dominant belief system.

Terms:
Post-colonial literature
Imperialism
Cultural relativity
Ode
Tragic hero
Tragic flaw
unreliable narrator (for Lispector)
First World or Imperial subjectivity
Return of the gaze
Otherness

Possible identification prompts:

You'll be asked to write on two works; one has to be Achebe's novel. You should come to the exam with a clear idea of your argument (not a fact for your first sentence, not something obvious or well known) and with at least two clearly delineated examples for supporting your argument (a plot fact is not an example; just naming the plotline is not providing a specific example, e.g. saying that Okonkwo is afraid of weakness or that he beats his wives is too general. Saying that Okonkwo beats his youngest wife during the Week of Peace is specific. But don't just name it and then drop it. Make a point about how your example illustrates a point).

1. How does Neruda's focus on the small or the local reveal insights about the cosmic order?  In other words, how does he use natural elements to convey spiritual ideas.
   
   
2. How does the writer convey the significance of imperialism in an encounter between an imperial subject and a person who is regarded as "Other"? (Pretre and the Pigmy woman or the District Commissioner and Okonkwo)

3. What makes Okonkwo a tragic hero? How does Achebe’s choice of tragedy as a genre function in his attempt to counter the misrepresentations of Africans by European writers?

4. How are the European colonizers able to create division among the African villages?

5. How does Achebe convey the complexity of the role of women in Igbo culture?

6. How do the British colonizers interrupt the communal culture of the Igbo? First, give evidence of their communal culture, and then give the evidence of how the colonizers disrupt it.