Realism and postcolonial subjectivity in the Black British Bildungsroman

Neumann, Birgit

doi:10.1075/chlel.xxxii.27neu

Part of

Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking literary realism in comparative perspectives
Edited by Dirk Göttsche, Rosa Mucignat and Robert Weninger
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXII] 2021
► pp. 735–749

Realism and postcolonial subjectivity in the Black British Bildungsroman

Birgit Neumann

The case study critically assesses theoretical responses to realism and the attendant privileging of non-realist modes of writing in postcolonial studies. While some postcolonial scholars disparage realism for its presumed affinity to imperial ideology, others argue that it is inimical to the more open, fluid and pluralized identities of the postcolonial subject. The essay then moves on to analyze Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) as an instance of the Black British Bildungsroman, also considering the controversies caused by the novel’s realism. According to critics, the novel’s realism underpins the construction of cultural stereotypes and the promotion of genuinely Western ideals, including individualism and neo-liberal self-fulfillment. Against the backdrop of this critique, this case study sets out to develop a more nuanced understanding of realism’s affordances and limits in Ali’s Brick Lane. Such a nuanced understanding pays attention to the historicity, functional polyvalency and semantic ambivalence of literary forms.

Keywords: Monica Ali, realism, modernism, postcolonial criticism, Bildungsroman , representation

Article outline

1.Incommensurabilities between realism and postcolonial concerns?
2.Resisting realism in postcolonial studies and fiction
3.The work of realism in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
Works cited

Published online: 21 April 2021

https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xxxii.27neu

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