The politics of language in the postcolonial writing unique to the works of Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows, and Chinua Achebe, The Things Fall Apart to use English as a source of power and as a means of creativity.

Abstract

This paper will discuss the role of language as a power resource and a creative resource of postcolonial fiction in relation to Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (2009) and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958). Colonial languages (in particular, English) are usually regarded as some means of oppression and spiritual subjugation in the postcolonial theory, but they can be utilized by postcolonial writers as a tool to find the voice of the locals and express hybrid identities. It was famous when Achebe (1965) said that a national Nigerian literature had to be written in English, the language he was familiar with during the colonial era. Achebe strategically uses Igbo language, proverbs, and speech rhythms into English prose to recapture the language used by colonizers to maintain the Igbo culture in Things Fall Apart. According to CliffsNotes, the use of Igbo language in an English novel that Achebe has managed is expanded by the author and this goes beyond the scope of what is regarded as an English fiction. On the same notes, Burnt Shadows by Shamsie is written in English although it incorporates Urdu poetry and other references to the East to create a deliberate hybridity. The characters of the novel express their love of languages and live in an environment that is saturated with Urdu poetry, which is an indication of the blending of the Eastern and the Western culture. With reference to the postcolonial theory, the paper argues that both writers use the English globalization to criticize the legacies of imperialism and to project subaltern voices. The theoretical framework is a synthesis of the knowledge that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o had created about the cultural power of language and the idea of writing back to empire. The study uses an elaborate comparative analysis to reveal how Things Fall Apart and Burnt Shadows reveal the ambivalence of English: it is a language of colonial authority and an expressive tool through which the postcolonial subjects are able to express identity, reject marginalization, as well as negotiate cultural hybridity. The major conclusions indicate that English is employed by Achebe to ensure that Igbo is legible in the world, and by Shamsie, to bridge the diasporic identities of the world by incorporating the local components to challenge the inequalities inherent in colonial language hierarchies. The analysis will help in the appreciation of how the tongue of the colonizer can be altered by the postcolonial authors as a way of literary invention and critique of politics.

Keywords: Politics of language, Postcolonial, Writing Unique, Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows, Chinua Achebe, Creativity.