Postcolonial Remembrance and Amnesia: A Double-Sided View Anonymous College

“Postcolonialism can be seen as a theoretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia to the colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project dedicated to the academic task of revisiting, remembering, and, crucially, interrogating the colonial past” (Gandhi, 4). One of the most difficult aspects of a confusing or traumatic experience on the part of the victim is the memory it leaves behind. More often than not just the mention of a word or phrase or place can suddenly all at once bring that victim back to the day or time something happened, forcing them to relive it again. In this case, sometimes the victim has the ability to shut out a painful or difficult memory to protect his or herself from being affected by it further. It is as if it never happened, and they enter a dangerous phase called denial. The question of whether it is healthy to deal with the issues at hand or sweep them under the rug is handled in two works: a novel called Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, “Interpreter of Maladies.” The effect the recurring memories have on the characters from each postcolonial work suggests that neither produces a positive outcome in terms of remembering or forgetting.

In Salman Rushdie’s novel,...