Cogent Arts & Humanities (Dec 2023)
The centre and pathology: Postmodernist reading of madness in the oppressor in contemporary fiction
Abstract
This study examines the pathological consequences of in-between identity on the members of the dominant group in polarized cosmopolitan settings in Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950). The study is a postmodernist reading of postcolonial literature to interrogate the pathological consequences of the constant shifts of identity in migrant characters. Most postcolonial studies contend that marginalization occasioned by the dominant group result in neurotic conditions in members of the minority group. They maintain that severe cultural conditions introduced by the dominant group mostly affect the psyches of the members of the minority groups and clinical madness becomes prevalent. This study, however, interrogates this thesis and investigates the possibility of the dominant group sustaining pathological tendencies as they change their perspectives to coexist with members of the minority through hybridity. In some postcolonial works of fiction, there is a tendency of some members of the dominant group undergoing severe mental disintegration in spite of their claim to superiority in relation to the marginalized groups. Using Ato Quayson’s calibrations, the study adopts postmodernist, postcolonial, and psychological models to interrogate possible causes and aspects of pathology in members of the dominant group with reference to Lessing’s The Grass is Singing. Although postmodernism is the umbrella theory, Quayson’s calibrations enable interaction of scholars from different academic disciplines for effective exegesis of pathology in the dominant group. The major finding of the study is that marginalization does not just adversely affect the objectified but also the dominant group as well; and results in the collapse of their psyche. The ideas of Jacques Derrida and Albert Memmi will form a theoretical basis of interpretation.
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