Story of Three Cities: Three Aspects of Post-colonial Landscapes

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize the effects of (post)-colonialism on the lives and landscapes of three different cities – Paris, Dubline, and Port of Spain, each of which is described in The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, Dubliners by James Joyce, and Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul. Benjamin wants to show the map of an early capitalist city to criticize mass influences of Phantasmagoria of the capitalist market and encourage the mass to confirm their class consciousness. To achieve this purpose, it is definitely important for Benjamin to show the ‘facts’ as they are, not opinions or ideologies. This is one of the reasons why he uses ‘montage’ as his writing technique. Contrary to the general belief, Joyce always has much concern about his homeland. The main theme of his Dubliners , paralysis, is designed to depict the sufferings and miseries of Irish people under the British colonial suppression and exploitation. Meanwhile, Naipaul portrays the lives of Indian immigrants in the Caribbean society who have been confined in poverty, helplessness, and weariness. The fact that their immigration as indentured laborers was implemented for the colonial nations shows the negative effects of (post)-colonialism. These three works reaffirm that colonialism isn’t beneficial to either colonizing or colonized nations in that it brings illusion on merchandise, moral hazard, and cognitive distortion.