Terrorism and Hybridity: Analysis of Terrorist by John Updike

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of hybridity as portrayed in Terrorist. As seen from a postcolonial paradigm, the paper seeks to determine the nature of relationship that characterizes the contact between the perceived superior and inferior cultures, that is, the colonizer and the colonized. The paper argues that the colonizer, or the Occident, typically resist and challenge hybridity. The perception among the colonizers is that cultural fusion both dilutes and degrades their assertions of cultural superiority. A quest for cultural preservation and purity defines the main objective of the colonizers. The study contends that, terrorism violence as interpreted within this study represents an extreme measure adopted by the colonizers as a means of cultural preservation. As for the colonized, hybridity constitutes an effective anti-colonial strategy which entails undermining the notions of imperial cultural superiority. The paper concurs with HomiBhabha’s postulation that cultural intermixing as a centerpiece of hybridity, is an antithesis to the designs of the colonizer.