RESISTING DOMINANT CULTURE IN THE LONELY LONDONER: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Kawa Sherwani¹*, Saman Dizayi^2
1Assist. Prof. Dr., Erbil Polytechnic University, Iraq, kawa@epu.edu.iq
²Dr., Erbil Polytechnic University, Iraq, saman.dizayi@epu.edu.iq
*Corresponding Author

Abstract

This paper investigates the resistance of immigrants to cultural dominance of London society in The Lonely Londoners a postcolonial novel by Sam Selvon. The Lonely Londoners (1956) depicts the miserable life of Caribbean people who migrated in hope to find better conditions of living than their countries. The paper furnishes a theoretic ground for analyzing the discourse of the novel related to the way the novel presented an important subject which is resisting dominant culture throughout events and language that is used by the novelist. The paradigm of immigrants and their trauma and shock have always been the spot line of discussion after WWII. Through the colonial history there was a dominant discourse of Western cultural superiority imposed on colonized, with the postcolonial era a different discourse emerged through intellectual presentations such as Fanon, Said, Bhabha ideas and others who enlightened literary theory and criticism and theorized resistance and cultural identity. Thus, this paper will analyze critically the discourse of resistance of Postcolonial people in exile to ascertain their existence and identity.

Keywords: Post colonialism, Discourse analysis, Resistance, Identity