Abstract
The article deals with analyzing female characters in the WHERE WE ONCE BELONGED by Sia Figiel. The novel is important for students who study postcolonialism and feminism as it gives an insight for gender and race issues. The aim of this article is to show how females in a male-dominated societies are persecuted. Furthermore, females are regarded as inferior according to Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. The Samoan culture was once colonized by the British. Therefore, the legacy of colonialism and its effects remains there, even after the national independence. It first gives some clarifications about the publishing of the novel and the writer. Then, it comes to the discussion about the colonialism in the novels with its connections to the main characters and how the colonizers were, and also how it affected their lives. In the next part, it explains double colonization. It talks about how almost all of the postcolonial writings were occupied by how women were muted. Then, it recalls how the female characters were suppressed and oppressed by the males and the English dominant power. It shows how they were double-colonized, not having even the freedom to show it.
Highlights
It is essential to know the definition of feminism and postcolonial feminism
The western feminism tried to find the reason behind classifying women as second class citizens and mostly oppressed
The purpose behind this study is to show how women in former colonies are controlled twice. This novel is analyzed according to Said’s theory of orientalism, in which he categorized the world into self or the occident which stands for the West and the orient or other stands for the East, the occident is the center, while the orient is the margins or peripheries
Summary
It is essential to know the definition of feminism and postcolonial feminism. The long history of feminism goes back to the late 60s and early 70s of the 20th century in the West. The western feminism tried to find the reason behind classifying women as second class citizens and mostly oppressed. Feminism in multi-cultural communities took different shapes. For instance in Indian culture, the four types of feminism exists such as First world, Second world, Third world, and forth world. Feminism in the former colonies and after the national independence took a new form which is postcolonial feminism. The feminists in these colonies felt that they should represent themselves as well as they experienced colonization and affected by it
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