Postcolonial Accommodations: Hospitality and Performance in The Tropical Breeze Hotel and Pantomime

Bu makale performans ve misafirperverlik olguları arasındaki ilişkiyi bir çerçeve olarak kullanarak iki Karayipli oyun yazarının çalışmalarında sömürgecilik sonrası toplumsal dinamiklerin rolünü incelemeyi hedefler. Guadeloupe'lu Maryse Condé'nin Pension les Alizés (Tropikal Esintiler Oteli) ve St. Lucia'lı Derek Walcott'ın Pantomime (Pandomim) isimli oyunlarında misafirperverlik olgusu, ve daha geniş anlamda bireyin kendisinin olarak algıladığı bir mekanda başkalarına yer temin etmesi ve onlara uyum sağlama süreçleri, diaspora kimliklerinin, ırksal ve cinsel kimliklerin ve neo-sömürgeciliğe karşı durmak gibi konuların işlenişinin merkezindedirler. Buna ek olarak, bu oyunlarda misafirperverlik olgusu performans olgusu ile bağdaştırılır, ve misafirperver hediye alış-verişleri ve kişilerin birbirlerine uyum sağlama süreçleri gerçek ve mecazi oyunların sahnelenmesi yoluyla anlatılır. Nihayetinde, misafirperverlik ve performans arasındaki ilişki önemli bir sömürgecilik sonrası toplumsal dinamiği ortaya çıkarır. Her ne kadar Karayip'lerdeki Anglofon ve Frankofon sömürgeciliğin kalıntıları evsahibi ve misafir rollerini önceden belirlemiş olsa da, misafirperverlik ve performans arasındaki ilişki Condé ve Walcott'ın bu figürlere ve daha genel anlamda sömürgecilik sonrası toplumsal dinamiklere uyum sağlama sürecine olan yaklaşımlarındaki kararsızlıklarını gözler önüne serer. Bu makale "performans" ve "misafirperverlik" kavramlarının sömürgecilik sonrası toplumsal eleştiri alanındaki analitik rollerini kısaca ele alarak başlar ve iki olgunun Condé ve Walcott'ın çalışmalarındaki ilişkisini inceler. Bu şekilde, makale, sömürgecilik sonrası toplumsal hayata uyum sağlama meselesi üzerinde odaklanmanın, Karayip edebiyatının analizinde sıklıkla kullanılan ve sömürgeciliğin kalıntılarına karşı koyma veya kabullenmeden oluşan ikili çerçevenin ötesine geçmeyi hedefler.

The Tropical Breeze Hotel ve Pantomime’da Misafirperverlik ve Performans

This article focuses on the relationship between performance and hospitality as a framework for thinking through postcolonial dynamics in the work of two Caribbean playwrights. In Guadeloupean Maryse Condé’s Pension les Alizés (The Tropical Breeze Hotel) and St. Lucian Derek Walcott’s Pantomime, ideas of hospitality, as well as the broader notion of accommodating others in a space one figures as one’s own, are central to illustrating issues of diasporic cultural identity, legacies of racialized sexuality, and resistance in the face of neocolonialism. Furthermore, both plays link the phenomenon of hospitality to that of performance, such that exercises in hospitable giftgiving and interpersonal accommodation are made manifest in both literal and figurative acts undertaken for the consumption of others. Ultimately, the relationship between performance and hospitality reveals a key postcolonial dynamic: whereas the legacy of Francophone and Anglophone colonialism in the Caribbean pre-scripts the roles of host and guest, the relationship between performance and hospitality dramatizes the ambivalence with which both Condé and Walcott approach the figures of host and guest, as well as the process of accommodating oneself to the seemingly renewed codes of conduct structuring a postcolonial polity. This article begins by briefly tracing the analytical trajectories of the terms “performance” and “hospitality” in postcolonial criticism, then explores their connection in the work of Condé and Walcott. In doing so, it argues that a focus on the question of postcolonial accommodation sidesteps the familiar tendency to study Caribbean literature through the binary framework of resisting or reifying colonial legacies

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