Scholarly works in European Studies
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://repository.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/303
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Item Representations of desert Arabs as colonial subjects in the contemporary French novel: a study of desert by Le Clezio(Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, 2015) Souleymane, A.Stereotypes of the Islamic world, which were generated by colonial French writers and denounced by their North African counterparts, usually degraded the Orient and justified colonialism. This article focused on the representations of the colonised Maghrebian Arabs in the novel of Le Clezio, a contemporary French writer. The study applied the postcolonial literary theory to explore the experiences of race, representation and difference in relation to the colonial discourse of Orientalism and Fanon's dichotomy between the coloniser and the colonised with a view to establishing the colonial assumptions permeating the novel titled Desert. The nomadic Arabs were dehumanised, debased, gerontified and infantilised while their virtues were negated and trivialised by Europeans, who, conversely influenced by Occidentalist self-affirmation, portrayed themselves as superior and powerful people whose intervention was to take out an eccentric, criminal and outlawed Islamic leader. Flis descendants in the colonised 'City' were classified as oppressors of women, moribund and wretched people who saw Europe as the Eldorado. These various representations of the Tuaregs as the demonic 'Other' of the European 'Self underpinned the writer's intention to expose the influence of colonial mentality, a result of hegemonic western discourse, on Iris fellow Europeans.Item "Resistance in the desert: a postcolonial reading of the novel desert by le clézio"(Nightingale Publications, 2015-06) Souleymane, A.Literature about the images of the Maghrebian Arabs was usually investigated in postcolonial criticism as either withholding the cultural assumptions produced by Orientalism or proposing an anti-western critique of the hegemonic West. This paper focused on the subversion of the stereotypes of the colonised Maghrebian Arabs in the novel of a contemporary French writer. The study applied postcolonial literary criticism to explore the experiences of representation and difference in relation to the colonial discourse of Orientalism and Fanon’s principles of violence and resistance with a view to establishing the anti-colonial reactions permeating the novel titled Desert. The nomadic Arabs were portrayed as freedom lovers who had to resist the internationally sponsored French army, presented as powerful, barbaric, repressive and oppressive intruders. Europe was demystified, as a hostile land, full of disillusion, brutality and deception. The heroin Lalla epitomised resistance as evidenced in the condemnation of oppression, forced marriage and exile to Europe. The existence of discursive resistance in the novel and the will to give a voice to the marginalized therefore establishes Desert as a postcolonial work, and more particularly a critique of the West from within.