Language, Identity, and Power: Analyzing Postcolonial Discourse in the English Novel
Abstract
Postcolonial literature has consistently shown that language is never a neutral medium of expression. In the English novel, especially within postcolonial writing, language becomes a site where identity is negotiated, authority is contested, and colonial structures are both reproduced and resisted. This paper examines how postcolonial discourse in the English novel exposes the relationship between language, identity, and power. Drawing on key postcolonial thinkers such as Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the paper argues that the English novel in postcolonial contexts does more than narrate the aftermath of empire; it transforms the colonial language into an instrument of cultural self-assertion. Through discussion of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the paper shows how postcolonial novelists appropriate English, challenge Eurocentric authority, and create hybrid forms of identity that unsettle colonial binaries. Ultimately, the postcolonial English novel emerges as a powerful literary space in which silenced histories are recovered, dominant narratives are revised, and the politics of representation are made visible.
How to Cite
Shilpa Mittal, "Language, Identity, and Power: Analyzing Postcolonial Discourse in the English Novel", Vol. 3, Issue 10, 22-01-2026, pp. 96-104.
