Comparative Narrative: Scenario For Different Pieces Of Literature

Comparative Narrative
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It is not an uncommon scenario for different pieces of literature developed in different timelines and under different circumstances to have major similarities. While reading Decolonizing the Mind by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, On Seeing England by Jamaica Kincaid, and Shooting the Elephant by George Orwell, one finds some deep similarities. First of all, it is essential to acknowledge that the books are written to express differing views. However, careful analysis of the three texts reveals major parallels in the ideas as well as some themes. From the onset, it is clear that the ideas expressed in the texts all emanate from the impacts of colonialism. For example, in Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi WA Thiong’o talks about how the British managed not only to take control of their subjects’ wealth, but also perfectly took control of their mental universe through language. In On Seeing England Jamaica Kincaid also details how she was made to feel tiny and inferior at the mentioning of England. England was exalted and made to appear as the most powerful country in the world, and this was done to quash any independent or autonomous thoughts the subjects might or could have sought to develop. In Shooting the Elephant, Orwell tries to show how the colonialists were limiting themselves in their quest to conquer the world. The above ideas are all different and represent the independent ideas these writers had regarding colonialism. However, a closer look at all the three texts seems to reveal that in essence, while the colonialists did manage to control the wealth of their subjects, their mental capabilities and powers of discernment remained intact. Additionally, the colonialists also failed in their quest and instead of gaining power, were, in fact, losing it.
While discussing the connection that exists between language and culture, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o states that “the real aim of colonialism was to control the people’s wealth…but its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonized, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world” (339). This, he says, was not obvious to the natives’ eyes, but the colonialists had its ways of making it happen. Jamaica Kincaid confirms the above notion by mentioning how they were made to view England as well as how England’s products reigned in her home as she was growing up. This was simply the colonialists’ way of exerting dominion over the mental universe of the colonized and reducing their world to nothing. “England was to be our source of myth and the source from which we got our sense of reality, our sense of what was meaningful, our sense of what was meaningless” (366). The colonialists sought to change the people’s sense of self and wanted to dictate every little detail of their lives. It was only by controlling people this way that they thought they could be revered and feared by the natives. They did not wish to give the natives the option of giving into their ideas willingly, but according to Orwell, this was in a way a loss by itself. At one instance, he notes, “a...