Postcolonialism as a Reading Strategy: Ben Okri’s The Famished Road

Abstract

This paper adopts post-colonialism as a reading strategy, by focusing, particularly, on post-colonialism as one of the most current of post-theories and as a peculiar literary theory which reflects or mirrors the conditions of ‘post-Colonial’ (third world) societies. It analyzes the characteristic features which Ben Okri employs in his literary text, The Famished Road. The paper aims at determining the extent to which these features reflect the postcolonial literary ideal. For easy and plausible analysis, the paper attempts an examination of the text through the paradigms of thematic concerns, formal techniques and discursive strategies. The significance of the study is that it shows how post-colonialism can help bring out meanings of literary texts. . The study finds that Okri uses meta-narratives to represent the imprint of the material forces of politics, economics and culture that act upon post-colonial societies within imperial framework. Within these, Okri reflects on post-colonial themes of dispossession, displacement, colonial and neo-colonial domination, post-colonial corruption, cultural fragmentation, change, problematic of post-colonial identity, alienation and exile.

Key Words: Post-colonialism and Theory, Post-colonial Societies, Political Corruption, Colonial Imperialism, Neo-colonial Domination, Post-colonial Identity, Reading Strategies, Literary Interpretation