Postcolonial Identity and Resistance in Global Literature
Caste and Forbidden Love in The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy’s novel, The God of Small Things, takes place in post-independence India, mainly in the state of Kerala. It illustrates how ancient social systems like caste continued to shape people’s lives long after 1947. While independence promised equality, caste discrimination did not disappear. Velutha is a Dalit (from the Paravan caste)—formerly called “Untouchable”—and therefore remains socially excluded and constantly at risk.
His secret love with Ammu, a Syrian Christian woman, crosses caste and religious boundaries. Although the story focuses on romance, it reflects the historical reality that India remained deeply divided even after gaining freedom from Britain. Roy uses the love between Ammu and Velutha to show how the “big things” of history—caste and politics—overpower the “small things” of personal happiness and human connection.
Many lower castes converted to Christianity hoping to escape oppression, but discrimination continued even within the Church through separate services, priests, and spaces. This is the world in which Ammu and Velutha live; their love is not only socially unacceptable but legally dangerous.
The Forbidden Meeting by the River
The narrative describes the night when Ammu and Velutha meet secretly by the river. As she walks through the garden, Velutha floats under the stars. Upon her arrival, he is overcome by desire and fear. They are acutely aware of the danger; Velutha could lose his job, family, and life because of his caste. When Ammu touches him, fear mixes with desire, yet the narrator reminds us that every moment of pleasure has a cost, foreshadowing Velutha’s tragic death and Ammu’s later suffering.
Velutha is a Dalit, part of the lowest caste. Despite being talented, intelligent, and gentle, society sees him as “impure,” and higher castes avoid physical contact with him. Therefore, Ammu’s love for Velutha violates the fundamental rules of caste; their meeting is both an act of love and an act of rebellion. Ammu’s desire is portrayed as natural and honest—the opposite of the artificial social rules controlling her life. Similarly, Velutha symbolizes resistance to a society that tries to keep him in his place.
Nature as a Space for Freedom
The river and the forest accept their love in a way society never will. Nature becomes the only space where an “untouchable” and an upper-class woman can meet without punishment. The description is magical, mirroring their beauty and temporary freedom. Despite this, the narrator constantly reminds the reader of the price: their love cannot survive in a society ruled by caste and patriarchy. Their meeting is both heaven and a death sentence, leading to tragic consequences: Ammu is forced out of her house, Velutha is falsely accused of kidnapping and rape before being beaten to death in police custody, and the twins carry the trauma for the rest of their lives.
The fragment symbolizes how “small things”—a moment of desire, a touch, or a smile—can lead to enormous consequences in a rigid society.
Mapping Resistance in Kei Miller’s Poetry
Kei Miller’s poem is set in the modern postcolonial Caribbean, where writers challenge how Western powers used maps, borders, and language to control colonized lands. Historically, maps were tools of empire—instruments for claiming territory, renaming places, and erasing Indigenous and African perspectives.
Miller establishes a dialogue between a Western cartographer, representing scientific and imperial ways of knowing, and a Rastaman, who speaks from Jamaican, Afrocentric traditions rooted in the Rastafari movement of the 1930s. The poem reflects the history of Babylon (Western oppression) versus Zion (spiritual liberation), showing that mapping is never neutral. It connects to postcolonial theories by Anderson and Bhabha, revealing how nations are “imagined” and how colonized people must remap their own identities after empire.
The Conflict of Perspectives
The poem is structured in short dramatic sections. Initially, the cartographer describes his work as a neutral, scientific task that helps people by clearing up confusion. This reflects the Western belief that maps show the world exactly as it exists. However, the Rastaman disagrees, arguing that the cartographer’s work flattens the world, removing local homes, small shops, and everyday spaces that matter to Jamaicans. These maps highlight colonial power and government control, making the colonized people seem small or invisible.
The conflict intensifies when the cartographer claims his work is free from emotion. This reflects the formal, disconnected language of the empire. The Rastaman responds with a challenge: if the cartographer draws what he can see, the Rastaman will draw what is unseen. This suggests that colonial truth is incomplete, and a map created by a colonized person reveals memory, suffering, resistance, and cultural survival.
Reclaiming Identity Through Lived Experience
In section five, the Rastaman invites the cartographer into his world through food and stories, showing that land is understood through community and shared experience rather than just measuring lines. This reflects de/territorialization—reclaiming space through lived experience. The poem addresses the “imperial gaze,” arguing that maps are part of Babylon used to limit Black people. In section VII, the cartographer begins to understand that creatures like bees and hummingbirds navigate using instinctive “maps” built into their bodies, matching the Rastaman’s belief that true understanding comes from spiritual and ancestral knowledge.
The poem ends with a reference to Rastafarian cosmology and Jah, linking the survival of enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage to Caribbean identity. Overall, the poem redefines mapping as an act of cultural resistance, moving from the limiting maps of Babylon toward Zion—a place of belonging and liberation.
Derek Walcott and the Mosaic of Caribbean Identity
Derek Walcott’s essay, The Antilles, belongs to the postcolonial Caribbean—a region formed by slavery, Indigenous genocide, and the mixing of African, Asian, and European cultures. Historically, the Caribbean was shaped by the Middle Passage and sugar plantations. Walcott writes against colonial images that described the islands as exotic and rootless, arguing instead that Caribbean identity is built from fragments of history and survival.
The Caribbean was formed by the forced migration of millions of enslaved Africans. Later, indentured laborers from India and China arrived, creating a society built from broken pieces of various continents. Walcott tells this story through memories, such as his visit to Felicity, a Trinidadian village where he watches a Ramleela performance. He shifts from a “Western gaze”—searching for ruins—to an “Antillean gaze” that recognizes the authenticity of the culture.
Fragmentation as Strength
Walcott uses the Ramleela to show how Caribbean cultures preserve the memory of Asia, Africa, and Indigenous peoples. Identity is powerful not despite fragmentation, but because of it; the act of rebuilding gives the culture strength. He rejects the colonial view of the Antilles as “illegitimate,” insisting that Caribbean people must speak for themselves. This connects to the concept of Self and Other, where Walcott reverses the gaze to allow the Caribbean to define itself through dialect and everyday life.
Using the metaphor of Ozymandias, Walcott critiques the arrogance of empires. While empires fall, the Caribbean survives. A major theme is language: Walcott explains that Caribbean speech is a fresh dialect, while imperial English can be rigid. He celebrates the Caribbean’s creative, mixed culture as a symbol of richness. Ultimately, the Antilles represent a triumph of memory and survival—a mosaic held together by history.
Grace Nichols: Ancestral Voices in the Storm
Grace Nichols’ poem, Hurricane Hits England, explores the spiritual journey of a Caribbean diasporic woman living in England. When a hurricane unexpectedly strikes the English coast, she reconnects with her identity. Like many of the Windrush generation, the speaker lives “between worlds,” carrying the memory of Caribbean history into a foreign land.
The poem is set in the late 20th century, reflecting the experience of migrants who felt caught between the cold English landscape and their warm homelands. The plot is simple: a hurricane arrives, and the speaker lies awake listening to the “howling ship of the wind,” a metaphor for the Middle Passage. The wind feels familiar, reconnecting her with her roots and ancestors.
Mythological Connections and Universal Belonging
Nichols invokes several cultural and mythological figures:
- Huracán: The Taíno god of storms.
- Oya and Shango: Yoruba deities of thunder and wind.
- Hattie: A real 1961 hurricane.
These names embody a transoceanic identity. A key theme is diasporic disconnection; before the storm, the speaker feels alienated by the grey English environment. The hurricane acts as a symbol of ancestral presence, breaking through her emotional distance. The poem shifts from the third person to the first person, marking her reconnection to herself. It ends with the realization that “The earth is the earth is the earth,” suggesting that identity flows across borders and that home is not limited to one geography.
Olaudah Equiano and the Trauma of the Middle Passage
The extract from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography provides a powerful firsthand description of the Middle Passage. It reveals the brutality of the transatlantic journey and the psychological destruction caused by the slave trade. This narrative is a foundational text for understanding the African diaspora.
Equiano’s account is set during the Atlantic slave trade, a violent system where Africans were treated as property. Writing in the late 18th century, Equiano’s testimony influenced the abolitionist movement by showing the humanity at the heart of the Caribbean’s creation. In the extract, Equiano describes his terror upon being forced onto a slave ship, losing his family, home, and hope.
The Dehumanization of the Enslaved
The text details the suffocating conditions, the smell, the darkness, and the deaths of those on board. Punishment was mechanical and cruel, with no concern for humanity—only profit. Equiano describes the crowding where bodies had “scarcely room to turn,” creating a deadly, “pestilential” environment. Many attempted suicide, but the crew used constant surveillance and violence to prevent it.
The screams of the dying reflect the Caribbean as a region where the sea “sighs with the drowned.” Caribbean identity comes from this fragmentation—the violent uprooting of people. Equiano’s narrative represents the first breaking point in Caribbean history, where cultures were broken and later rebuilt from fragments. His testimony allows the Caribbean to reclaim memory from colonial silence.
Apartheid Hypocrisy in Nadine Gordimer’s Fiction
Nadine Gordimer’s story, The Moment Before the Gun Went Off, is set in apartheid-era South Africa (1948–1994). Under this system of strict racial segregation, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act made interracial relationships illegal, creating a society of fear and hypocrisy. The story exposes this through the character of Marais Van der Vyver, a white farmer who accidentally kills a Black worker, Lucas.
The setting is a rural Afrikaner farming community, the heart of conservative white identity. Although the shooting is an accident, Van der Vyver fears how the international press will use it as an example of white brutality. The plot reconstructs the accident: a loaded rifle fires through the roof of a vehicle after hitting a pothole. However, the deepest truth remains hidden.
The Secret Behind the Tragedy
The funeral scene highlights the emotional division of apartheid. The white community observes Black grief with coldness and stereotypes. The turning point is the revelation that Lucas was Van der Vyver’s son. This exposes the hypocrisy of apartheid; while the system claimed to protect racial purity, its supporters often broke these laws in secret. Van der Vyver’s uncontrollable weeping at the police station is the grief of a father who cannot mourn his son openly.
Lucas’s mother stands silently at the funeral, representing the suffering of Black families exploited by white power. The story shows that apartheid forced people to hide love and human interaction, which became another form of violence. Ultimately, the tragedy shows how apartheid trapped both Black and white people in a cycle of fear and emotional pain.
Trevor Noah: Growing Up as a Crime Under Apartheid
Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime is a personal memoir and political testimony. It illustrates how race in South Africa was not biological but a system of laws. As a mixed-race child of a Black mother and a white father, Trevor’s very existence was evidence of a criminal act under the Immorality Act.
Even after apartheid ended in 1994, racist attitudes persisted. In one chapter, Trevor struggles with belonging as a teenager in the suburbs. He befriends Teddy, a Black boy, but when they are caught shoplifting, Trevor escapes because the guards do not recognize him as “Black,” while Teddy is arrested and expelled. This highlights how skin color determined punishment.
Performing Race for Survival
Noah explains that he was “the proof of their criminality.” His mother had to lie on official documents and hide his father’s identity to avoid suspicion. Because Black people needed passes to move, Trevor’s mother was often arrested. Due to his mixed appearance, Trevor could not walk openly with his mother; he had to be disguised, and they often used another woman to pretend to be his parent. His childhood was an exercise in “performing race” to navigate an oppressive system. Through these stories, Noah reveals the deep structure of a system that declared his birth illegal.
Truth and Reconciliation in Gillian Slovo’s Red Dust
Red Dust is set during the years of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-apartheid South Africa. The TRC allowed victims to tell their stories and forced perpetrators to face their crimes, aiming for ubuntu (reconciliation). However, the novel shows that truth can reopen old wounds and that forgiveness is not automatic.
The story focuses on a hearing where Alex Mpondo, a Black activist, confronts Dirk Hendricks, the policeman who tortured him. This moment shows how trauma affects both the victim and the perpetrator. Alex takes back some power by questioning Dirk himself. The fragment reveals two versions of Dirk: the polite, regretful man at the hearing, and the cruel man Alex remembers.
The Embodied Memory of Trauma
As Alex questions Dirk about specific torture methods, he feels the same physical sensations—the pressure and the darkness. This reflects embodied memory, where the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Dirk’s voice eventually changes back to the one that tormented Alex, showing that his violence remains part of him. The most powerful moment occurs when Dirk exposes Alex’s shame: under torture, Alex revealed the location of weapons. This secondary trauma and guilt haunt the victim long after the violence ends.
The hearing explores the uncomfortable ties between victim and perpetrator. By forcing Dirk to name the place where the torture happened, Alex regains control. Red Dust demonstrates that national healing is challenging; truth is necessary but painful, and the past always leaves its marks on the present.