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BAQQAL LUTFI ABBAS LUTFI

Postcolonial Literature: Discourse Analysis of Rhetorical Devices in

the Plays of Lynne Nottage and Derek Walcott

Doctoral Thesis

SUMMARY

Research Background

Lynne Nottage and Derek Walcott are two remarkable postcolonial playwrights who

know how to grasp the possibilities offered by the environment. On the other hand, they have

generated inordinate remarks and criticism, conveying different opinions, and emphasizing

human awareness in day-to-day life. The theatrical crystallization of these two writers who

trigger such varied responses exploits the claims of failure and success in their societies with

reference to the social absurdities, political contexts, economic ladder, family relations,

traditional customs, elements of self-determination that generate thought, knowledge, and

behavior. In general, they tackle postcolonial topics through the use of rhetorical devices,

focusing on such linguistic tools to highlight national disparities.

Our dissertation is mainly concerned with the analysis of two plays: Ruined by the

African American woman playwright Lynne Nottage, and Pantomime by the West Indian poet

Derek Walcott, both focusing on the use of rhetorical devices utilized to spotlight and

consolidate the ideas and views that are the reflections of the time in which these two plays

were written. Our analysis detects the rhetorical arguments employed by the characters in order

to attain certain intended goals and sarcastic, pessimistic, ironic, and comic purposes.

Discoursally, we investigate the occurrence and the function of the deployment of the

rhetorical devices in these two plays, following two directions in the use of such beautifying

agents in these postcolonial plays: (1) literally, they support the author’s vision and impression,

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besides the reflection of realism; and (2) linguistically, they emphasize a well-connected

linguistic text coupled with aesthetic and ornamented characteristics. That is, the study points

out all those rhetorical elements that may create tragedy, uncertainty, and excitement, interest,

and curiosity on the part of the audience or readers, highlighting those elements that constitute

the structure of the plays concerned.

The two dramatic masterpieces are evident reflection of today’s life in several respects.

They show the writers’ ability to account for human concerns by engaging characters of the

periphery who craft an intended journey that shapes out a human justice in terms of race,

language, oppression, skin color, culture, etc. The stage production of the sufferings and

existential gaps help us to understand the new constrains and realities of the 21st century.

Theater is crucial in every society to match up the metaphysics of the past, and an integral part

of the process of establishing the present day and future for diverse nations and communities.

Accordingly, we board on two political bases, dissimilar to the each other in objectives,

knowledge building and canon, done through the use of rhetorical tools being able to establish

the goals of each writer delivered according to the nature of his/her audience. The imperfect

situations of characters represented in diasporic positions and otherness help Nottage and

Walcott to seek their ethnic and chronological legacies, transforming them into skillful

narratives.

Walcott’s background is the main impetus to the exploration of the social and cultural

context of the Caribbeans as he holds responsibility to seek the identity of such zone through

his journey of finding his self-independence. As a result, his thematic ideas are based on his

“mixed-race” background, embodying his origin as a descendant of slaves, and he proceeds to

a description of his African heritage and most of the personal conflicts he has encountered.

Having learned English as a second language, acutely aware of its status as the language of the

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colonial power, he always finds himself attached to his Caribbean identity, “poised between ...

Africa and the West, between slavery and intellectualism, between the native Caribbean tongue

and English learned from books, [and] between the black and white in his own body” (Dickey,

1986: 8).

From a young age, Derek Walcott struggled with religious, language and cultural

complexities, turning him to a condition of confusion and weakness. The real enthusiasm

behind his dramatization is the writer’s desire to shift to an acceptance of multiculturalism

which would add more optimism in his life. The play’s protagonist has been fictionalized to

evoke the unity in the writer’s society seeking for hopefulness through the field of art.

Walcott’s philosophy is framed by hybridization of identity and diaspora, all seen in his journey

among the diverse cultures of Britain, America, and the Caribbean, and represented in his

startling voice in poetry, theatrical representation, and criticism. In brief, Walcott utilizes

literature to highlight different topics, such as ethnicity, cultural chauvinism, and political

inequality. He has been highly honored as a deeply committed postcolonial playwright whose

explorations of racial, cultural, and historical consciousness in the contemporary Caribbean

have been considered moving, erudite, and technically masterful.

Conversely, Lynn Nottage’s playwriting is enriched by a universal frame rather than a

regional one. Moral and spiritual evidences are her performance cornerstone in the light of

cultural and political structure; she uses the characters’ sorrows and difficulties to construct a

national presence pointing to the shaping of certain cultural identities. Remarkably, her texts

become prominent when locating them in the geographical war-zone contexts, tending to

present her textual proposals free from cultural and ethical discrimination. Her dramatization

describes a new way of postcolonial writing that does not add distinctiveness to the problems

of postcolonial discourse. The main concern is to make use of colonial text to manifest

contemporary aspects of power, and otherness as a means of enslaving communities.

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The philosophical convergence between Nottage and Walcott is attributed to the

difference of intellectual base between them, as both write from their own inclusive

experiences. Nottage’s perceptions do not stem from personal postcolonial conflicts resulting

from the biological hybridity which stimulates multiplicity in human identity as in Walcott’s

case. Yet, she bears the duty of humanity and sympathy towards the victims of wars, family

violence, male arrogance and women’s concerns that are rarely discussed in the American

theater. She conveys the bitter reality of the black African, while denouncing the capitalist

policy of her country, America, that lies behind the internal problems of other countries,

weakening them for the purpose of dominating their resources. East Africa, particularly the

Congo, is a land rich in natural resources, mainly coltan, the valuable mineral which is fought

upon by war parties to sell it to foreign customers. Nottage thinks that the issue of such a

valuable mineral should be addressed by the United Nations and the advocates for human

rights; she is in favor of the boycott of consumer electronics using coltan, produced by the

advanced countries. Universal ascription is attributed to Nottage’s political dramatization

where she does not see the Congolese Civil War as just an African concern, but as a worldwide

war, considering that 90 percent of this mineral which comes out of the earth in the Congo is

used to produce cell phones and Nintendo and a variety of similar products.

The literary and linguistic investigation bear the alteration and its effects that occur on

the concept of colonialism in its common historical context represented by Walcott’s

methodology on one hand, and the new colonial philosophy characterized by the foundation of

new capitalist approach implemented by the dominant Western countries such as Belgium and

America which indirectly dominate the economies of the growing nations, on the other.

Different objectives of characters of each theater generate varied ways of addressing the

audience, leading to a variety of rhetorical tools in use as each of these devices tends to carry

different postcolonial meanings, focusing on the intended visions in depth. The characters

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demonstrate a great deal of disparity between colonialism and its new form known as “neo-

colonialism” as each literary treatise is concerned with. Consequently, the neo-colonialism is

a new form of colonialism following a strategy different from the early establishment of

empires seen in the creation of colonies in non-Western territories.

Neo-colonialism is the process of exporting the social conflicts of the capitalist nations

in order to broaden the gap between the wealthy and the poor countries of the world, though

such policy cannot stand permanently as World new policy. Practically, the female characters

in Ruined label the idea of “neo-colonialism” as an oppressive policy that causes their

destruction and gender inequality. Nottage emphatically criticizes the male capitalist

involvement which lies in fighting upon economic richness. On the contrary, Walcott

exclusively exposes the traditional opposition between the “self” and the “other” which brands

the directness of colonialism by the early British Empire in an innovative artistic manner

known as “carnival”, by providing male characters only to impart echoes of colonialism and

confront the oppression. As far as neo-colonialism is concerned, the first president of Ghana,

the first one to use the term, Kwame Nkrumah (1965:11) writes:

“Neo-colonialism is…the worst form of imperialism. For those who practice it, it

means power without responsibility, and for those who suffer from it, it means

exploitation without redress. In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial

power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad.

In the colony, those who served the ruling imperial power could at least look to

its protection against any violent move by their opponents. With neo- colonialism,

neither is the case”.

Both the female and male protagonists undertake journeys of self-reflexivity needed to rail

against the oppression and one-sided methodology of the other, deconstructing colonial

literature in public atmospheres. These fictionalized entities delve into a process of overcoming

difficulties which seem to be insurmountable and a mirror to its context and environment. The

adaptation of identity struggle is crystalized through the protagonists who archive the

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dimensions of the survival conflicts, inherent in the given postcolonial writers’ inner thoughts

which affect their intellectual and cultural claims as a part of Caribbean and African confines.

Research Questions

Considering the theoretical heterogeneity of postcolonial discourse, both playwrights

belong to different periods of English literature that tackles the discourse of minorities from

different perspectives. They differ in addressing their communities and societies by viewing

cultural absurdities and colonial consequences that are common in their times. These two

writers belong to different geographical areas, so they must provide varied methodologies and

literary styles as representative of their common contemporary frameworks. Therefore, a

number of questions are raised to form the objectives of the dissertation to which we have to

find answers:

1. How do Lynn Nottage and Derek Walcott employ significant rhetorical elements in

their productions, manipulate views on two different geographies, and expound the

cultural contexts to which they belong to?

2. How do we find thematic connection between the occurrence of the most frequent

rhetorical devices and functions? What are the structural advantages behind their

incorporation in those two plays?

3. Does discourse analysis of rhetorical devices mark down the different linguistic

embellishment of both Nottage and Walcott? Is there any divergence in their use of

such figurative language to deliver what makes their audience delighted?

4. Considering postcolonial discourse, how do both dramatists’ characters cope with

their hybrid positions, otherness, matters of colonialism, oppression, and identity

loss? Why do they choose the concept of hybridity to be a zone of salvation of

masculine and feminine characters?

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5. How do Walcott and Nottage succeed in presenting counter-discourse and

strengthening postcolonial identity? Do they achieve any political and cultural

justice they look for?

6. If we consider looking at the increasing dichotomy between the Third and First

World nations, How does postcolonialism operate in Congo and Tobago with

reference to globalization and capitalism?

The concepts of otherness, power hierarchies and canon building within certain confinements

are better understood by asking and finding answers to such crucial preliminary questions. To

look at how colonizers biased the representation of the “other” in the Western academia, these

speculations offer an operative matrix that goes in the formation of slavery, armed opposition,

diasporic cultural complexities, and implications of colonized existential resistance in

Nottage’s succession of events and Walcott’s cross-cultural paradigm.

Limitations of my approach

Due to the complexity of the topic, involving both linguistic and literary aspects, some

restrictions are required in carrying out this dissertation. In particular, it is confined to the

analysis of the most frequent and commonest rhetorical and aesthetic elements, which are

employed to have both discoursal and literary functions. In fact, the study is limited to the

investigation of postcolonial elements as depicted through the use of rhetorical devices in the

two plays selected: Nottage’s Ruined and Walcott’s Pantomime. The focus is on the use of the

main influential tools (stressing diasporic consequences of imperialism, colonial and colonized

relations, and the need for indigenous independence). These devices involve the use of simile,

metaphor, irony, contrast, parallelism, allegory, symbol, personification, hyperbole,

metonymy, and repetition; they help the two authors to cultivate their postcolonial views to

arouse the readers’ and spectators’ feelings, directing them towards certain revolving entangled

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issues prevailing in the society, such as hybridity, gender split, sexual abuse, rape, and political

instability.

Method and Corpus

The study is based on a qualitative, descriptive, and comparative method employed to

collect and analyze data; therefore, it sets out from the theoretical perspectives concerning

postcolonial literature as reflected in the use of rhetorical maneuverings utilized in Lynne

Nottage’s Ruined and Derek Walcott’s Pantomime. This reflection intensifies the intellectual

and political concerns that consolidate the establishment of both plays within their particular

layouts. Hence, a survey of the entire plays is made with the purpose of detecting examples of

the rhetorical elements used. A description of the results and findings is posited at the end of

the data analysis which inclines to pinpoint the common principles that label postcolonialism

as a worldwide perception in the multicultural American and Caribbean theaters that Nottage

and Walcott address. Thus, an appeal to such a method is made, which necessitates a variety

of existential dimensions that transcend the canonical productions of Western civilization,

reaching the wider scope of non-Western languages and literatures, in our investigative case,

African and Caribbean postcolonialism. Practically, the rhetorical devices are tools in hand of

the researcher to be applied to the collected data and their use is justified to get varying results.

To attain the study objectives, he follows the following steps:

The Introduction: Rhetoric of Postcolonialism: Emergence and Development

demonstrates that literature reflects the characteristic features of postcolonialism, contributing

to the deconstruction of colonial, patriarchal forms, and raising the readers’ awareness towards

decolonizing them. Then, all literature written under colonial hegemony becomes a practice

of critique employing postcolonial theory, often abbreviated to postcolonialism. We outline (1)

the main directions of postcolonial discourse, viewed as a manifestation of postmodernism in

its multiple aspects that include the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism; and (2) the

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characteristic features of postcolonial rhetoric, a complex tool that writers use with the purpose

of persuading, motivating, or informing their readers or theater audiences. We deal with the

consequences of colonialism as a global phenomenon, and its disastrous results on the

colonized nations. Therefore, our assumption of postcolonialism is that of a framework for the

critique of colonialist thought, and we focus on the representation of the other in the works of

the theoreticians of postcolonialism, providing a synthesis of the major tenets of

postcolonialism, as detailed by Frantz Fanon (the mental condition of the colonized Black

man), Edward Said (the relationship between culture and imperialism), Homi Bhabha (the

axioms of colonization), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (the constitutive nature of language and culture),

or Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (the condition of the subaltern woman), or Fernando F. Segovia

(a temporal application of colonialism). All these rely upon Foucault’s perspective on

discourse, viewed as a confined zone of social knowledge which eventually evokes different

ways to understand truth, language, and power, as well as their interconnectedness.

Chapter One: Postcolonialism; Identification and Characterization directs our attention

towards a survey of the theoretical background and general remarks that underline the basic

characteristics of postcolonial theory as the fundamental vehicle of our critical mission. We

come to understand the objective bases of the word “post” in academic establishment of the

discipline which allocates a continuous framework of resistance that expedites decolonization

shift in non-European world. The prolific investigation of this section is crystalized by a

distinction between the colonialist literary representation and the colonial one as needed to pin

down the functionality of colonialism as both theory and practice committed to originating

interrelatedness between White realities and its colonized opposites.

We adopt the up-and-coming postcolonial discourse that springs up from a variety of

views crafting fundamental split between those who show preference to foreign dynamics of

invasion and writers who reject such discourse of dominance. Briefly, this chapter highlights

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the footsteps of postcolonial notions, such as: (1) race, ethnicity, and gender in light of

colonialism; (2) counter discourse; (3) Otherness and the struggle for independence; (4)

mimicry/hybridity/Third Space; (5) essentialism and identity. (6) nationalism/nation; (7)

diaspora; and (8) language functionalities. Such crucial perceptions are not grounded to hold

postcolonialism accountable for historical archiving; in fact, they are an exposition of the field

heterogeneous actualities that tend to disregard the monolithic nature of Eurocentrism. All the

aforementioned pillars are based on the authentic inferences of diverse founding philosophies:

the existential model of Edward Said, the psychological and racial perception of Frantz Fanon,

the theoretical studies of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, and the modern criticism of Gayatri

Chakravorty Spivak concerning new world policies and the woman’s status.

We delve into several cultural and political hypotheses that work on politics of de-

centering and re-centering certain traditions and norms with regard to the questions of

geography. Relationally, it is a requisite for postcolonial critics to trace their knowledge

production to Michael Foucault’s model of inevitable connection between knowledge and

power which participate in generating discourse. Subdivisions of subjects apply, such as the

overlapping between history and identity politics of formulation, rendering national echoes

which result in the present-day foundation where a lot of nations attain their independence and

autonomy. Since the theory given contains perspectives of multidisciplinary critiques and

interrogations, a crucial presumption is observed through authors’ course of rewriting history

as supportive dynamic to establish true experiences of colonization without Western

prejudices. Relationally, matters of epistemology and educational plantation are presented in

anti-colonial treatises implemented on non-Western individuals in colonized territories

complying with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s rejection of such imperial constitutional strategy of

knowledge, and condemning the adoption of a foreign tongue that supports the cultural

existence of colonizers.

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Chapter Two: Discourse and Rhetorical Devices introduces the analytic-linguistic

model of analysis we apply for our intended postcolonial investigation which develops the

ability to uncover the irregularities of speech, utterances, events in theatrical literary

constructions. The study provides definitions and origination of “discourse analysis”, utilizing

linguistic observations of Clark (1994), Carter (1993), Nunan (1993), Schiffrin (2006), Brown

and Yule (1983, Harris (1952), Widdowson (1973), Léon (2005), Trask (1999), and Robins

(1971); they trace the origin of the term “discourse” pointing to its multiple employments,

operations, and functions that such analytical scope generates and performs. Discourse analysis

is not employed only in the literary field; it is an interdisciplinary approach that generates an

impact on every field that language is a part of or relevant to. Significantly, the authors feed on

such linguistic branches to pass their perspectives and viewpoints to their readers and folks

who facilitate their comprehension and understanding of certain issues and reflections by going

beyond linguistic indications and establishments.

Many theorists concentrate on chunks of language as needed to be examined in a wider

context to celebrate proper interpretations of a text, speech, dialogue, etc. Detecting figurative

language is a pivotal method of discourse analysis which can be applied to construe dramatic

discourse satisfying our endeavor to unveil concerns of humanities, attributing realism through

art and performance. As far as literature is concerned, we constantly come across the rhetorical

devices as basic methods of analyzing literary discourse. These techniques are held as a key

for authors’ aimed persuasion.

This chapter offers a classical introductory survey to the rhetorical devices, their

emergence of use, origins, significance in literature, and the early common devices in use, with

reference to well-known philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato, and Quintilian. We move onto

explaining how these tools function in different literary genres, drama in particular, as well as

their employment in spoken and written utterances – a valid differentiation is noticed between

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each of these figurative instruments which emphasizes different implication and indication –

the negativity devices are distinguished from those which only carry desired meanings, and

also from the ones which produce different ideas from the expected one in a text or speech. We

exclusively focus on eleven common devices that exist almost in every literary discourse giving

prominence, eloquence and sharpness to the used sentences, phrases, dialogues, etc. The

identification, meaning and function of devices such as simile, metaphor, symbolism, etc. are

presented with numerous examples from a variety of theoretical views built by seminal

linguists of the field given.

Chapter Three: Rhetorical Devices in Lynne Nottage’s play “Ruined” is devoted to the

use of rhetorical devices in Nottage’s play, demonstrating how these tools provoke postcolonial

philosophies at the time when Congo lives under severe circumstances and destructive

conditions, when most people are killed and displaced due to the civil war which left thousands

of victims, especially raped and tortured women who end up in a pathetic diaspora. Based on

the definitions, use and types of figurative of speech as detailed in Chapter Two, this chapter

attempts to translate these devices into authentic practical text (loads of meaning and

connotations are transmitted by these maneuverings to figure out postcolonial realities).

Excerpts carrying these devices are identified and analyzed to get to what these devices

expose on both the literary and linguistic level. On the one hand, these embellishing devices

are used to create melodic and aesthetic dramatization that can achieve specific effects,

providing political discourse in order to archive crimes of wars against the vulnerable gender.

On the other hand, these purposeful devices are deployed by Nottage to clarify and magnify

the savage pictures of inner Civil War portrayed in merciless acts against humans and land

experienced in Congolese society and geography. Simply put, Nottage is successful in

fashioning these literary tools in her representation of empathy on victims of rape and male

cruelty. Meanwhile, Nottage’s characters use these figurative tools to reflect their agonies and

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sufferings. Perhaps, the use of these tools helps them to loudly announce their ideas and

feelings in a cultivated way that is more readily accepted by modern readers (the ideas are more

fluently flown by the insertion of these devices).

It appears that Nottage has appealed to some devices rather than others to facilitate her

realistic motifs such as body politics, gender complications and identity of diaspora,

particularly those which inspire her to declare her human voice. In one sense, she resorts to

smile to highlight sexism as a dynamic foundation that thrives war, supporting patriarchal

canon. In another sense, metaphor is deployed to deliver realistic comparison between ideas

and pictures drawn from Congolese life purposely to locate an identity and space in order to

exchange men’s brutality with women’s motherhood and creativity, allocating feminism as a

major focus of postcolonialism. Irony, contrast, and repetition touch upon socio-traditional

conventions in relation with the absence of ethical-social values and beliefs, depicting indirect

political conflicts on economy and leadership in an atmosphere of hybrid condition.

Parallelism, metonymy, hyperbole, symbolism, and allegory provide a variety of pictures of

tribalism, loss of national framework and people’s divisions as an exclusive capitalist war

against Congo and its land. Such prolific devices label Nottage as a canon-building feminist

who advocates human truths and realities that need to raise awareness in Western theater.

Chapter Four: Rhetorical Devices in Derek Walcott’s Play “Pantomime” traces the

employment of figurative devices in Derek Walcott’s play, demonstrating literally and

linguistically the achievement of these agents to consolidate postcolonial perceptions built on

the long Caribbean history of British imperialism where matters of racism, dichotomy between

superiority and inferiority, and slavery were everyday occurrences. Accordingly, it seems

necessary to Walcott to fictionalize characters of opposite attitudes to echo colonialism with

the defensive nature of his origins as a citizen of Tobago. Focus is laid on Walcott’s prominent

passages and indications that carry the weight of postcolonial notions conveyed via literary and

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linguistic elements and the tools of persuasion. In “Pantomime”, the manipulation of rhetoric

is achieved to generate an atmosphere of “carnival” that Walcott uses to beautify his existential

defense of identity by exposing its ethnic biases, tending to negotiate two different worlds i.e.

the First World of Britain and the Third World of Tobago. The intended figurative language

facilitates the understanding of stereotypical constrains of imperial imposition, giving profound

pictures of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in postcolonial West

Indies. Walcott is able to induce his colonized strengthening representation by calling his

readers to consider the matter of producing facts by giving Caribbean character the priority of

power on the stage with the help of the role-reversing method which proves successful through

rhetorical agents. On their part, the fictionalized characters utilize figurative devices to

exchange verbal shots and deliver conflicting subjects i.e. political matters of inequality, the

exploitation of human being to make money.

The literary representation of Walcott shows a divergence in the use of rhetoric where

he favors some devices over others in order to demonize Western canons that conspire to

marginalize the non-white masses which Walcott belongs to. Generally, he exploits the simile

to validate sexual behavior which takes a new cultural turn after the coming of invaders (the

homosexual phobia expresses Walcott’s sense of rejection of the colonial cultural values which

breaks the social limits of the internalized absurdities of Tobago). In the same way, indirect

metaphorical comparisons are needed for realistic depiction of racial consequences of

imperialism with a touch of condemnation to Western literary paradigms such as the character

of Robinson Crusoe, Columbus, or Shakespeare, allocating a new postcolonial voice of

resistance with the help of theater. The employment of irony conveys Walcott’s real

dismantling of the concept of binary formation which is constructed by British Empire

strategies – foregrounding the challenge of Western power which tends to disturb the

colonizers’ consistency, obviously done within a space of hybridity. Parallelism, metonymy,

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hyperbole, symbolism assert a matter of postcolonial equality the writer aims at beside booting

out the inferiority attribution initiated to set one’s own philosophy upon the other – there is

advocacy to counter discourse that advocates multiculturalism which is required for both local

and national stability in the Caribbean.

In Conclusions: Basic Hallmarks of Postcolonial Rhetoric in Ruined and Pantomime,

we highlight the key concepts – otherness, hybridity, mimicry, diaspora, loss of identity,

language manipulation, race and gender – that have guided us in our critical discourse, and

underline the idea that the rhetorical devices we have followed in each play manifest three

purposes for the two dramatists: (1) they are the tools that they exploit to build hieratical mental

structures (ideologies and intentions); (2) they could transmit their messages eloquently and

smoothly by having recourse to these implements; (3) text-wise, these tools help to transfer the

various events and circumstances in real life into a constructed text.

From one angle, the rhetorical devices (such as metonymy, simile, metaphor,

parallelism, etc.) are embellishing tools which attract the readers’ attention towards a specific

point and highlight it through their linguistic behavior. For the characters, the incorporation of

these tools helps to facilitate the illustration, clarification and argument taking place in their

ideological struggles. A survey of most of the scenes containing these devices reveals the

important role they play in fixing the characters’ ideas, clarifying their points of view, and

exchanging speech in a more sophisticated way.

Evidently, postcolonial philosophy is a wide-spread area which occupies the mind of

philosophers, thinkers, and writers. It is expressed in various ways by means of different

linguistic tools: one of the most influential methods is the use of figurative expressions. Lynne

Nottage and Derek Walcott resort to these literary elements to convey the discourse of those

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who undergo a sentence of history, and suffer oppression, Eurocentrism and Western

universalism.

However, the two writers do not differ significantly in the way and type of rhetorical

devices they use: with the exception of personification for Walcott and allegory for Nottage,

they clearly use the same devices. The former exploits personified images to disrupt the

universal canon-building that paves the way towards constructing colonial empires, whereas

the latter appeals to allegory to portray the Congolese political figures, tribal remains and

positive and negative attributes (dis)preferred in the society – actualizing events, names, places,

and public figures. This psychologically makes them sound more realistic; this is one way of

making the readers accept the writers’ viewpoints. All in all, Nottage’s Ruined is a feminist,

political, conflictive postcolonial discourse that mirrors the dark Eastern African past where

land and people were often subjugated and violated to have control over Congolese

government. Pantomime sends to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as the first postcolonial

novel set in the Caribbean, in which Defoe conveys the story of colonialism and neglects the

role of finding the revolutionary voice of opposition for the colonized, a gap which Walcott

attempts to bridge through the appearance of his protagonist.

I conclude by asserting that such an approach to Lynn Nottage’s play Pantomime and

Derek Walcott’s play Ruined has been an enriching experience which allowed for a new

understanding of postcolonial literature. It has been a stylistic approach, bordering on

pragmatics, and also a contextual approach that allowed for a review of the ways in which

political representations address the key issues of postcolonial reality.

The rhetorical tools have been textually reinforced, thus objectifying the notion of

colonialism addressed by the postcolonial theater. In our case, the distinction between colonial

literature and the postcolonial response is suggested by the resistance to universal impact. More

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precisely, colonial literature conveys a representation of a nation, like Walcott’s Tobago, or

Nottage’s Congo, both away from non-Western perception, and both supporting the

establishment of empires. Oversimplified, the postcolonial discourse addresses the relationship

between the white man and the other non-white, exposing the intricacies of each writer’s

understanding and theatrical comment on the realities of (post)colonialism.