George Lamming and V. S. Naipaul in the light of politics of postcolonialism

Bu makale, sömürgecilik sonrası (postcolonial) edebiyatı alanında önemli bir yere sahip olan ve bir anlamda doğu-batı karşıtlığını temsil ediyor diyebileceğimiz V.S. Naipaul ve George Lamming’in Üçüncü Dünya ülkelerinden biri olarak bilinen ve bir zamanlar sömürgeleştirilmiş olan Batı Hint Adaları (The West Indies) halkının kültürü ile ilgili politik ve ideolojik duruşlarını karşılaştırmaktadır. Her iki yazarın ‘tarih’, ‘dil’, ‘milliyetçilik’ve ‘kimlik’ gibi kriterler ile ilgili düşünceleri ve söylemleri göz önüne alınmış ve şu sonuca varılmıştır: Dil, gelenek, kültürel mit ve madunları öne çıkardığı için bir ‘sosyalist gerçekçi’ olarak değerlendirilebilecek olan Lamming’in sömürgeleştirilmiş bireyin yersizyurdsuzlaşma ve yabancılaşma duygularına çözümler bulmak için öznellik ve duygusallık temeli üzerinde çaba sarfeden ve ‘old new caliban’ diye tanımlanan bir figürü temsil ettiği öne sürülebilinirken, akıl, mantık ve bilimi öne çıkaran bir modernist ve positivist olarak tanımlanabilecek olan ve sömürgeleştirilmiş bireyleri romantic ve subjektif yaklaşımlardan çağdaş dünyanın objektif gerçeklerine uyanmalarını sağlayabilecek hiciv ve ironiyi olanca sertliğiyle kullanan Naipaul’un ‘new new caliban’ diye tanımlanan bir figür olduğu ileri sürülebilir.Başka bir deyişle Lamming ikili karşıtın sadece bir ucunu kendi öznel gerçeği üzerinden subjektif bir şekilde temsil ederken, Naipaul’un sadece kendi doğrularını ileri süren tez ve antitezlerin, ya da ikili karşıtlıkların kısır döngüsel çatışmalarından kurtulmanın, Hegel’in ‘bir ikiliğin iki ucunu da hem kapsayıp hem de inkar ederek ötesine geçmek’ anlamına gelen ‘Aufhebung’ kavramının benimsenmesiyle mümkün olabileceği düzleminden hareket ettiği söylenebilir.

Considering their literary lives, oeuvres, political and ideological affiliations as regards the third world societies and the West; this article deals with a comparison of V. S. Naipaul and George Lamming in the light of their politics of postcolonialism. It tackles the general qualities that characterize and differentiate each of them, and the question as although they both have almost the same backgrounds, why they are considered as two postcolonial writers representing discrete poles as regards their culture and once-colonized societies. Considering both writers’ different standpoints regarding the history, the writing style & language, the prospect of an integral Caribbean nation, and the identity of the individuals of the once colonized nations, it comes to a conclusion that while Lamming (as a socialist realist who champions langugage, tradition, myth and the disadvantaged) is likely to be considered as a figure representing the ‘old new caliban’ who has exerted to find remedies which aim to cure the feeling of alienation and rootlessness on the basis of subjectivity and intuition, Naipaul, as a modernist and positivist who champions reason, logic and science,and who has mixtured satire and comic irony to awaken the colonized subjects from their romantic and subjective thoughts to the contemporary world’s positivist and objective realities, is likely to be considered as a figure representing the ‘new new caliban’. Or to put it in other words, while Lamming represents the one side of the binary opposition in a biased manner, Naipaul acts in a manner which may likely be percieved through Hegel’s concept of ‘Aufhebung’ which also means sublation.

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