Colonialism, Clash Of Ideologies, Exploitation And Resistance: Postcolonial Issues In Short Stories Of Grace Ogot’s The Green Leaves And Bessie Head’s The Collector Of Treasures

Abstract

The postcolonial short story is a developed version of the oral folk tale tradition and the writer may be termed as the modern-day minstrel. Colonial experience and concerns were not similar in all the subjugated territories across the globe; hence, the stories also differed in their subject matter and treatment. Having attained their liberation from the European or the English rule in the twentieth century postcolonial countries worked towards regaining their lost glories by going back to revive and reclaim their heritage. History, culture, language, and literature became matters of national pride. Some of the key concerns and issues addressed in the postcolonial short story are challenging colonial authority, challenging patriarchal authority, resolving complications and tensions caused by the colonial rule, greed of the western world in grabbing land, extensive mining, exploiting forest produce, grabbing raw farm produce, exploiting land resources and worst of all indulging in human trafficking. Postcolonial story is the story of the decolonised man making his own destiny by knowing himself and reconstructing himself. Decolonisation triggered the urge to search one’s roots via the memory lanes of ancestry, history and oral legacies in order to locate the individual and the community in the pre-colonial past and this search gave birth to a large body of literary treasure. The journey of the postcolonial story originates in the pre-colonial past, moves through the colonial period, coincides with the postcolonial present and aims to culminate in a globalised future. The present paper attempts to highlight some basic postcolonial issues narrated by African women story writers.