Relations between Postcolonialism, Fiction, Posthumanism, and Defamiliarization

The final summative part of this chapter depicts the relations between postcolonialism and fiction and posthumanism and defamiliarization in view of the alienation Grace, as a postcolonial character, feels.

New historicism can be a medium to see the relation between fiction and postcolonialism. To begin with, new historicism is a literary theory that argues that literary texts are the representations of historical events either of a particular historical

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period or of various historical periods. Therefore, new historicism “reject[s] both the autonomy and individual genius of the author and the autonomy of the literary work”

(Bertens, 2007: 140). It is for this reason that “literary texts […] [are] absolutely inseparable from their historical context” (140). That is, literature cannot be separated from the social world in the sense that historical events shape the social relations which in turn find a place in literature as the determiners of the concept of what or who a human being is. The politically, economically, and technologically powerful nation, therefore, is reflected in literature as the one that has a superior position to the other nations and as the one that shapes the power relations. In view of postcolonialism, therefore, postcolonial literature reflects the Western/Eastern dichotomy with the powerful/powerless, developed/less developed, and civilized/uncivilized dichotomies.

Namely, in view of new historicism, postcolonial literature reflects the relations between the colonisers and the colonized.

Touching upon the concept of identity in the coloniser-colonized relationship, Homi Bhabha brings forth the concepts of hybridity and of third space. Hybridity refers to the intermingled relations between the colonisers and the colonized. As Bhabha rejects the emergence of pure nationality with the existence of the colonized in the lands of the colonisers, he claims that these two binary oppositional sides merge into one another:

Hybridity is a problematic of colonial representation and individuation that reverses the effects of the colonialist disavowal, so that other ‘denied’ knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the basis of its authority – its rules of recognition. (Bhabha, 1994: 114)

Then this new idea of the hybrid nations, different from the one supported by the colonialists, leads people to question the boundaries between the binary oppositions

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related to the colonialist discourse (Meredith, 3). It is when they question the imposed meanings of the West and the East as different entities, they pave the way for postcolonial hybridity and Bhabha’s ‘third space’, in which the hybrid nature of these two binary oppositional entities engenders new possibilities of identities:

Thus, the third space is a mode of articulation, a way of describing a productive, and not merely reflective, space that engenders new possibility. It is an

‘interruptive, interrogative, and enunciative’ (Bhabha 1994) space of new forms of cultural meaning and production blurring the limitations of existing boundaries and calling into question established categorisations of culture and identity. (3)

That is, the relationship between the coloniser and the colonized is questioned by Bhabha, and the identity formation is related to the interrelation between the two sides.

Then for Bhabha, the existence of Other is necessary in identity formation:

Postcolonial critical discourses require forms of dialectical thinking that do not disavow or sublate the otherness (alterity) that constitutes the symbolic domain of psychic and social identifications. (Bhabha, 1994: 173)

Talking about the significance of hybridity and the third space in identity formation, Amar Acheraïou agrees with Bhabha and Meredith:

The deployment of the concepts of hybridity and ‘third space of enunciation’ to question binary interpretations of the colonial fact has become the model of analysis in postcolonial and anthropological studies. (2008: 2)

Then it can be concluded that postcolonial texts do not repeat the colonial discourse;

instead, by reflecting the colonial discourse, they criticise it to attain new perceptions about self and identity.

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The interrelationship between the coloniser and the colonized and the interrelationship between the one and the other/Other not only engender new possibilities of identities but also foreshadow posthumanism in the sense that it is through the hybrid nature of the coloniser and colonized, the concept of human being attains different meanings. From now on, he/she is not a pure entity of his/her own nation; he/she is open to different dynamics. As hybridization underscores the loss of pure nationality, it leads both the coloniser and the colonized to search for different alternatives for self-expression and identity formation. As stated previously, to accept the notion of hybridity as a postcolonial concept, one has to look at the binary oppositions from a different angle, and it is through defamiliarization that challenges the Western humanist discourse and that envisions alternative posthuman conceptions of what a human being is that the notion of hybridity is engendered.

The postcolonial hybrid nature of Grace in Towards Another Summer enables her to compare and contrast her life in New Zealand and in Britain too. Thanks to that hybrid nature, she criticises the Western colonialist and humanist discourse, as in the example of her criticism about how the British can make the Australian immigrant lose her distinguishing marks. As Grace, as the migrant character in the novel, is aware of the conditions brought forth by colonialism, she searches for different ways to express herself:

Frame’s [Towards Another Summer] both represent and enact the migrant’s subjectivity-in-process and in so doing render the known as endlessly new, strange, and other. (Michell, 2009: 110)

In this sense, by teleologically adopting the bird identity, Grace welcomes the endlessly new, strange, and other as her identity. As stated earlier, the endless identity pertains to her endless search for the ways of self-expression and self-recognition.

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To turn back to the relationship between fiction and posthumanism in view of the novel, it can be said that as Grace cannot make herself heard either among the New Zealander or among the British, she tries to express herself through fiction, as a novelist. Then fiction is a medium for her to attain self-expression and self-recognition.

The similarity between fiction and posthumanism lies in the fact that in both the human concerned is open to undergo changes in his/her perception of who or what she is because fiction, just like posthumanism, welcomes alternative ways of self-expression and self-recognition in identity formation: as Deleuze and Guattari argue, art and the

“[a]rtists [are] always adding new varieties to the world” (Deleuze, Guattari, 1994:

175). That is to say that art “aims at creating new ways of thinking, perceiving and sensing Life’s infinite possibilities” (qtd in. Braidotti, 2013: 107).

By transposing us beyond the confines of bound identities, art becomes necessarily inhuman in the sense of nonhuman in that it connects to the animal, the vegetable, earthy and planetary forces that surround us. Art is also, moreover, cosmic in its resonance and hence posthuman by structure, as it carries us to the limits of what our embodied selves can do or endure. (Braidotti, 2013: 107)

In this sense, art, or fiction serves the aim of attaining new perceptions and possibilities about self; Grace’s novels are the possibilities of self-expression. It is also through fiction that Grace approves of her posthuman bird identity while talking to the American and his friend about her novel. As she is no more a human being, she cannot have a social interaction or she cannot communicate with the American and his friend:

the loss of literal communication does not indicate a total failure of meaning for the young woman, as Grace struggles for new ways of meaning that are hidden, or which exist beneath the surface of the spoken word. […] Does her denunciation of boundaries and divisions derive from her failure to cope with humanity or with

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her sexual identity? Does it emanate from her alienation from her surroundings, from the Imperial centre where values and landscape differ from the settler colonies? (Golafshani, 2008: 110)

The questions above are, in fact, the rhetorical ones if one considers Grace’s migratory nature, her alienation stemming from her migratory nature, her relation to the British as well as the New Zealander, and her criticism towards the Western colonialist and humanist discourses.

To sum up, as a postcolonial character, Grace suffers from silence and alienation either among the New Zealander or among the British. She is not good at face-to-face communication as she is already alienated from her human identity and she accepts a bird identity as an alternative to that human one so as to find a way to be recognised among people. That is, “[h]er failure to belong is signified in her silences, and her loss of language” (110), yet in this way she manages to attain different identities for herself.

What is explicit in her searching for alternative ways to express herself is that it is an endless process because as Pepperell argues posthuman is in a discontinuous state of definite and preconceived relations, definitions, and identities of and about himself/herself. Then, as Haraway argues, “worldly embodiment is always a verb, or at least a gerund. Always in formation, embodiment is ongoing, dynamic, situated, and historical.” (2008: 249) That is, posthumanism rejects the Western humanist conception of human being as the measure of all beings or as the final superior entity that is also the perfect one when compared to other entities. Instead, it supports the idea that “[t]here are no pre-constituted subjects and objects, and no single sources, unitary actors, or final ends.” (Haraway, 2003: 6) In this sense, posthumanism is a reaction to the anthropocentricism of the humanist discourse, and it looks at what a human being is from a different angle via defamiliarizing the concept of human being from its

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humanistic meaning. As the “process-oriented vision of the subject” (Braidotti, 2013:

190), the posthuman welcomes the human and non-human and/or sub-human interaction and intermingling: that is, the posthuman is the one that is differentiated and that differs from ⁴⁰ the pure human either through technological advancements and the advancements in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, or through the human-animal intermingling, as in the case of Grace in Towards Another Summer. However, it should not also be forgotten right at this moment that posthumanist rejection of the humanist viewpoint does not mean the end of humanity or humanism, as also argued by Neil Badmington in “Theorizing Posthumanism” (2003: 21); the human and the posthuman are connected to one another in the nature-culture continuum. If the case of Grace is considered, she aims at expressing herself among the human world in her bird identity as well; that is, the nature compounds with the culture in a different domain that welcomes both the nature and culture. That is, Grace’s attempt at self-recognition unravels her search for the third space, so to speak with Bhabha’s terminology; she is trying to find a domain in which she can find and form her own identity. In this attempt to find an identity for herself, fiction serves Grace also for self-expression. For Grace, the way for appropriation, or the way for keeping herself away from the sense of alienation, is fiction. Then fiction, literature in this case, shows up as a medium for Grace to realize who or what she is. As fiction is open to new perceptions about what or who the human is, it is similar to posthumanism. It is through both fiction and

40 The reason why active and passive forms of the verb ‘differ’ are both used is that posthumanism is open to external technological and scientific advancements, so these advancements shape posthumanism and the posthuman, and the posthuman is differentiated from the pure human; and also posthumanism is an active ongoing process that shapes and changes the conception of identity perpetually, so it differs from the pure human.

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posthumanism Grace, as a postcolonial character, tries to escape from the sense of alienation she feels among people. To see the relationship between fiction and Grace’s alienation and search for identity for herself, one can also compare the novel to Janet Frame’s autobiography as a further study. In that autobiography, the reader will find various resemblances between Frame herself and her characters in her other novels as well, so the Freudian understanding of fiction that suggests that literature is the domain where the writer can express himself/herself can be exemplified. For further study, the poetic language of Janet Frame can be elaborated. The novel can also be analysed in view of how a human-animal relationship and similarity are described in religions so that one can have more comprehensive perception of posthumanism.

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