Postcolonial Literature Analysis of Gabriel Okara's Once Upon a Time
Introduction
Focusing on the theme of postcolonial literature, this essay aims to explore the various themes and issues surrounding postcolonialism in literature, which has become a prominent phenomenon of the 20th century. Scholars of the area have interpreted the word "colonization" in different ways, but it mainly focuses on fighting against the invasion and influence of cultural, ideological, psychological, political, and geographical factors on the less civilized people of Africa, India, Asia, Australia, and America. The colonizing drama was mainly performed by European nations with various strategies and techniques that would entice the local people to accept their rule. These techniques included splitting the profits between local oligarchies and colonial powers, updating the ravages of colonialism, waging wars, and committing mass murder on the local people. The postcolonial theory of literature analyzes the lasting effects of the travel journals of 15th-century explorers, which initiated the colonization of the assumed weaker and feeble nations of the world. Gabriel Okara's poem "Once Upon a Time," analyzed the essay, highlights the conflict between two worlds of hypocrisy and authenticity represented by the father and son, respectively, and the desire to escape from the innocence of childhood. By examining the themes and issues of postcolonialism, this essay seeks to shed light on the impact of colonialism on literature and culture.
Post colonialist Reading of a poem entitled “Once up on a time” written by Gabriel Okara. The poem is generally nostalgia of the good things that used to be in the good times of the past. “Once up on a time” is a phrase usually used in fables or fairytales and with long ago duration more like; as if it’s so long ago it almost never happened. It’s being narrated by the father or someone who’s older; from the word reference “Son” about such a good times of the past with the meaning of referring to what good norms with no hypocrisy was in the past. However since we humans contemplate about the past in intense wish or drown in nostalgic thoughts whenever we are unpleasant about of the current situation we are living in from the persona perspective it’s obvious that he is experiencing one. The father figure also can be as a metaphorical expression of the old or the pre-colonial Africa cause the father is in deep allusion of disbelief and in flux to adapt the new tradition of the colonizer even though his totally against it.
Once upon a time, son, they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes: but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. Because of the phenomenon or the change that had happened in the society they no longer practice their culture or norm which he consider really genuine and honest.
In the second line “they used to laugh with their hearts” referring to the people; have two possible interpretation one is that they were happy and used to have a heartfelt happiness after the colonization they are not longer that much delighted and they are just pretending to look happy or they are lining in a state of hypocrisy. The second interpretation would be the hybrid (New) culture of the colonizer is fake and its making them fake as well for instance in the lines of the first stanza but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. This is typical European culture; smiling with only your teeth but not heartfelt one. In order not to appear rude or offend our company pretending to enjoy the company of someone when we are not really is a discipline. Even though the invaders left but they left a ticking timer bomb on the culture which explode time to time and victimize the indigenous culture extensively.
There was a time indeed they used to shake hands with their hearts: but that’s gone, son. Now they shake hands without hearts: while their left hands search my empty pockets. The second stanza elaborates more the idea of the first stanza why they are not greeting people passionately that’s because they tend to measure someone’s honor by their wealth and power not by their age like most African countries have a certain privilege for the elder more than the local government or riches. People only greet you when you worth something in terms of wealth unlike the past African culture. ‘Feel at home’! ‘Come again’: they say, and when I come again and feel at home, once, twice, there will be no thrice – for then I find doors shut on me. In the third stanza we can see the cultural crisis as well as “unhomeliness” as explained by Homi Bhaba like this “The struggle for individual and collective cultural identity and the related themes of alienation, unhomeliness (feeling that one has no cultural “home,” or sense of cultural belonging), double consciousness (feeling torn between the social and psychological demands of two antagonistic cultures), and hybridity (experiencing one’s cultural identity as a hybrid of two or more cultures, which feeling is sometimes described as a positive alternative to unhomeliness) the similar state of feeling the people they are living in. There fake invitation lasts only for the sake of saying, lying to themselves. People no longer have place for the previous African culture. So I have learned many things, son. I have learned to wear many faces like dresses - homeface, officeface, streetface, hostface, cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles like a fixed portrait smile. On this stanza we can notice to features of postcolonial features.
The First One is we come across indigenous people that imitate their colonizers, as much as possible, in dress, speech, behavior, and lifestyle. phenomenon known as mimicry, and it reflects both the desire of colonized individuals to be accepted by the colonizing culture and the shame experienced by colonized individuals concerning their own culture, which they were programmed to see as inferior. Finally the Narrator with big moral and social milieu was forced to match with the new culture.
The Second is the feeling of Otherness or wearing different personality in different places knowing well that it’s not right, but only for the sake of blending with the others. This portrays the new culture they are forced to accustom is fake and dividing them apart from one another. This assertion is an ample example to illustrate the counterfeit nature of the coming assertion. “This hybridity, or syncretism as it’s sometimes called, does not consist of a stalemate between two warring cultures but is rather a productive, exciting, positive force in a shrinking world that is itself becoming more and more culturally hybrid. This view encourages ex-colonials to embrace the multiple and often conflicting aspects of the blended culture that is theirs and that is an indelible fact of history. ”
And I have learned too to laugh with only my teeth and shake hands without my heart. I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’, when I mean ‘Good-riddance’; to say ‘ Glad to meet you’, without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been nice talking to you’, after being bored. The repetitive assertion emphasizes the connotations of being lost in his own society but the feeling of not belonging or suffering from cultural/identity crisis to that certain culture makes him feel what can be described as “the colonial subject as having a double consciousness or double vision, in other words, a consciousness or a way of perceiving the world that is divided between two antagonistic cultures: that of the colonizer and that of the indigenous community. ” The not ending circle of Recognizable, fake, cliché of manner but he tries to be rhythmic, to be as same as everybody else. However the urgency to adjust oneself to the colonizers culture becomes inevitable and the only rule to fit in is wearing a fake self like masks with dresses like a costume or an outfit. Even though he doesn't like it he still takes part in it. He turned himself into one of them. He gradually started to adapted in order to survive, blend and learn to do it, just to fit in. But believe me, son. I want to be what I used to be when I was like you. I want to unlearn all these muting things. Most of all, I want to relearn how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!
The sixth stanza the desperation for the pre-colonial past swing by when he realizes the current culture with apparent unstable foundation. He longs for the previous one he refer the new culture as the “muting” the spoiling one or a culture which disrupt the harmony in existence. The desperation to relearn the self sustaining harmonious genuine culture of the past referring the present self in a simile of “shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs !” it implies the sinister smile of the snake smiling until the success of malicious intentions.
So show me, son, how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile once upon a time when I was like you. The last stanza but not list puts in analogy his culture heartfelt love for others with the innocence of a child. Now the burden is left to the son, Most of all the father is counting on his son to decolonize to change this residual effect of the colonizer. This last stanza most of all reflects and as Many ex-colonials therefore feel they must “assert a native culture both to avoid being swamped by the Western culture so firmly planted on their soil and to recuperate their national image in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. This emphasis on indigenous culture, especially when accompanied by the attempt to eliminate Western influences, is called nativism or nationalism. ”
In the mean time hoping that the future will be different by the new generation the wish to decolonize the mind of the young generation and restore the culture or returning back to the essentials and to bring back the pre-colonial culture as movement of nationalism is what the poem wraps up its idea.
