Postcolonial Critique of Novels: The Nighttime Harmony of Woodwinds by Reza Qasemi and The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Subject Areas : Social (with literary and artistic features)

Behzad Pourgharib ¹ , Abdolbaghi Rezaei Talarposhti ²

1 - Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism,University of Mazandaran,Babolsar,Iran.
2 - Dr.Abdolbaghi Rezaei Talarposhti Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran. [e-mail] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6380-4845

Received: 2023-11-02 Accepted : 2023-12-06 Published : 2025-04-26

Keywords: Colonization, Postcolonialism, the other, The Lowland, The Nighttime Harmony of Woodwinds.,

Abstract :

Postcolonial theory, in general, addresses the ways in which colonizers seek to persuade colonized nations to accept the superiority of the colonizer's culture over their own. Given the diversity of these approaches, postcolonial theory encompasses a broad spectrum. One of the tools for representing and deconstructing colonial practices is literature, particularly postcolonial novels. This paper examines these two novels within the realm of postcolonial literature, specifically, migration literature. The authors of these stories, Reza Qasemi in The Nighttime Harmony of Woodwinds and Jhumpa Lahiri in The Lowland, attempt to shed light on many issues faced by colonized countries through their narrative. The data for this research has been collected through library research, and after categorization, it has been analyzed using qualitative research methods. The research results indicate that the dialectic of self/other continues, and given the increasing power of colonized and colonizers, altering this relationship will be an exceedingly challenging task.