Infancy Colonialism and Post-Colonial (Thwarted) Term Paper

They may militarily dominate the culture, but they do not speak the language of the culture's beliefs. Adele assumes that Aziz desires her because she desires him and because 'Orientals' are highly sexualized, even though Aziz actually pities her before the events of the cave, noting "she has practically no breasts" (Forster 130).

The narrow view of Shakespeare's famous play of colonization is explicitly questioned in Elizabeth Nunez's novel Prospero's Daughter. There, the mad scientist

Dr. Gardner takes over the native orphan boy Carlos' land and falsely accuses him, as the boy comes of age and can lay claim to his property, of raping Gardner's daughter Virginia. Gardener uses this as justification for his taking possession of everything Carlos owns. He even uproots the life-giving native fruit trees crops because they take away from the beauty of his transplanted soil and grass. Eventually, the Carlos and Virginia fall in love, overcoming the boundaries of nationality and the 'us vs. them' discourse to establish a loving relationship.

As anti-colonialist as Nunez may be, her celebration of the romance between Carlos and Virginia shows that post-colonial discourse need not be racaialized or fueled by hatred. True, it may seem, upon the surface, that there is a simple and easy answer to the misunderstandings between colonized and colonizers -- eliminate the forces of the colonized. Of course, India strove to do this in history. But the novel Train to Pakistan shows that there are still tremendous divides between Hindus and Muslims, and also between the different classes of the land. One villager of Mano Majra, a town that lies on the border of the partition of Pakistan and India says that: "We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians -- or the Pakistanis [so it does not matter to us who rules]" (Singh 48). The novel, like Passage to India, suggests that a human connection, based upon honesty and toleration of one another's differences is the key to peace, not strident nationalism that attempts to eradicate the ideology of the English.By creating a uniform Indian or Pakistani identity, the native populace is likely to become polarized within itself, even if before the English came to their land they dwelled amongst one another as "brothers" (Singh 126). "There is no peace anywhere. One trouble after another" (Singh 96).

However peace is possible where there is understanding as is seen in the relationship between Mrs. Moore and Dr. Aziz "She had proved her sympathy by criticizing her fellow countrywoman but even earlier he had known. The flame that not even beauty can nourish was springing up... [Aziz said] 'You understand me, you know what others feel. Oh, if others resembled you!'... [She replied] 'I only know whether I like or dislike [people]'. 'Then you are an Oriental.' (Forster 21). Even if Aziz's own projection of himself onto Mrs. Moore is problematic and foreshadows Adele's projection, at least it contains some sense of tolerance and fellow feeling that Forster believes is life-giving, even in the wake of colonialism.

Works Cited

Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. Harvest Books, 1965.

Nunez, Elizabeth. Prospero's Daughter. Ballantine, 2006.

Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. Grove Press, 1994.

Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest." Shakespeare Homepage. May 16, 2008. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/index.html.....