THE TWO WAY THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE

POST-COLONIAL POETRY
Binary opposition
The postcolonial literature played a significant role in the movement of
freedom for post colonies. The literature has depiction of the two way expressions.
When you study it with the perspective from binary opposition you will come to
know that it is a complete combination of, pain and pleasure, hatred and love, loss
and gain, defeat and victory, black and white possession and dispossession,
superiority and inferiority, existence and non-existence.
The post-colonial literature is based on the reality and it represents two
phases of human life the present and the future. It is a true depiction of human life
its miseries and the struggle to achieve freedom from those miseries. In fact this
literature is responsible for the end of the struggle of postcolonial people in order to
bring a bright future for them. The post-colonial writings including the poetry, the
fiction and the drama are rich in inner the expressions of the writers being a part of
those colonies. It has two way expressions including, tyranny, tragedy, frustration,
and despair on the one side while on the other side it contain in it a ray of hope, a
massage for bright future, a warmth and love associated with homeland.
"despairs and hopes, the enthusiasm and empathy, the thrill of joy and the stab of
pain..." but also a nation's history as it moved from " freedom to slavery, from
slavery to revolution, from revolution to independence and from independence to
tasks of reconstruction which further involve situations of failure and disillusion".
(Iyengar, 15)

The oscillation between two cultures or hybridization

The dual identity and the dual culture: the English or the African
The literature is based on the representation of the true cultures of postcolonial people on the one hand but on the other hand the comparison between two

cultures can be seen. The poets themselves and the characters portrayed in the
fiction and the drama are true representation of the post-colonial lives as it is
evident from the lines given below:
I who am poisoned with blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

The above lines are taken from the far cry from Africa by Derek Walcott. The
poet is looking confused he can't make any distinction between the two bloods. He
wants to say that neither he is able to go into his past nor he can accept the cruel
present as he has the blood of the two cultures in side of him. He is unable to even
recognize himself standing in the middle of two things. The same idea of hybrid
identities has been established by Walcott in his play A dream on the monkey
mountain.
Whereas another poet described it as;
Here we stand
Infants overblown
Poised between two civilizations
Finding the balance irksome. (Quoted in Povey, 39)

The two civilizations mean the Africans the uncivilized people according to the
colonizers and the civilization of the colonizers themselves; the African and the
English civilization.

The sense of nothingness or existentialist and nihilistic believes

Existence or nonexistence: Something or nothing

In the poem The Schooner Flight (1979), Shabine, a Walcott persona, gives an
often quoted definition of the identity of a person from a small country in the
Caribbean:
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I am nobody, or I am a nation
The poet seems in search of identity. Although he has command over three
mediums of communication but still he thinks the he does not know he has a nation
inside him or he is nothing. The sense of nothingness is creating an extreme sense
of frustration hidden inside him because of non-recognition of his identity.

The class struggle in the light of Marxist view

The civilized or the uncivilized: the superior or the inferior
Not only the struggle for the freedom can be seen but also the class
discrimination or the class distinctions can be seen through the poetry of postcolonial writer. The suppression of the colonial people and underestimation can be
observed through the poem given below.
I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
No body'll dare

Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-(Langston Hughes)
The poor and the treatment towards the colonial people by the colonizers has
been portrayed but the

poet is still hopeful in the last stanza that one day this

difference shall be disappeared and they will be ashamed over their attitude
towards colonial people.

The possession and the dispossession

The past and the present: the domination and the subordination
The unforgettable colonial past comes angrily alive in a poem by Kenya's poet
Joseph Kareyaku thus,
It is not as you suppose, your lands,
your cars, your money, or your cities
I covet...
It is what gores me most,
that in my own house and in my very own home
you should eye me and all that's mine
with that practiced, long-drawn, insulting sneer. (quoted in Iyengar, 30)
The elements of anger and agony can be observed through the voice of poet.
The lines written above are the evident that the property and luxuries being enjoyed
by the white people in reality belong to the colonial people. Those properties were
in the ownership of black people but now the white are showing pride over the
possession of those properties.

But a ray of hope that changed their fate

The hopelessness and the hopefulness
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
(Maya Angelou)

These beautiful lines are written by Maya Angelou a little and insignificant word
Dust seems challenging to the white people. It means that a little and insignificant
thing can be proved as significant one and can be raised up to the sky.
Love after Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome
, ( Derek Walcott)
The love for homeland Africa is present in every sentence. The hopelessness
can be seen that the struggle shall never be in vain. The day will come when they
will get freedom. The hope is an ultimate reason to live when there is
disappointment.