Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
A Transcontinental and Transcultural Muralof Colonial Justice: A Postcolonial Reading of the Fortuitous Trilogy by Achebe, Woolf, and Forster
Dept. of English & Linguistics, University of Ruhuna
Prof. E.A. Gamini Fonseka, Mr. P.N. Rathnayaka, “A Transcontinental and Transcultural Muralof Colonial
Justice: A Postcolonial Reading of the Fortuitous Trilogy by Achebe, Woolf, and Forster”, American Research Journal of
English and Literature, Vol 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-7.
Abstract
Although the three classic postcolonial novels – Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958), The Village in the Jungle by
Leonard Woolf (1913), and A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (1924) – were composed in three totally unrelated settings
and without a predetermined timeframe, they efficiently contribute to a transcontinental and transcultural mural that
powerfully relates a coherent and consummate metanarrativeof colonial justice with its three main junctures identified
as the establishment, the operation, and the withdrawalas part of an oppressive administrative system maintained totally
to the advantage of the colonizer and at the expense of the native. The trilogy fortuitously composed of the three novels
reveals various strategies the colonizers used in the respective settings for the establishment and maintenance of their
power by means of an alien institution of justice biased to English common law which was totally operated in English,
capitalizing on the natives’ ignorance of the language and culture, law and order, custom and etiquette, and methods
and practices it is associated with, and their failure to hold on at the point the natives became conscious of their true
behaviour, challenged their hypocrisy, and resisted their dominance.While appreciating the authenticity of the narratives
in the three novels in the context of their function as political critiques, this paper attempts to analyse the texts from
a postcolonial perspective, compare the circumstances under which the heroes continue their respective struggles for
existence, assess the literary and aesthetic potential the authors have demonstrated while articulating their political
consciousness,interpret them from an historical point of view, and appreciate the impact they make on the political
awareness of their worldwide readership.
