Copyright Alexander Adkins 2016 ABSTRACT Postcolonial Satire in Cynical Times by Alexander Adkins Following post-1945 decolonization, many anticolonial figures became disenchanted, for they witnessed not the birth of social revolution, but the mere transfer of power from corrupt white elites to corrupt native elites. Soon after, many postcolonial writers jettisoned the political sincerity of social realism for satire—a less naïve, more pessimistic literary genre and approach to social critique. Satires about the postcolonial condition employ a cynical idiom even as they often take political cynicism as their chief object of derision. This dissertation is among the first literary studies to discuss the use of satire in postcolonial writing, exploring how and why some major Anglophone global writers from decolonization onward use the genre to critique political cynicisms affecting the developing world. It does so by weaving together seemingly disparate novels from the 1960s until today, including Chinua Achebe’s sendup of failed idealism in Africa, Salman Rushdie’s and Hanif Kureishi’s caricatures of Margaret Thatcher’s enterprise culture, and Aravind Adiga’s and Mohsin Hamid’s parodies of self-help narratives in South Asia. Satire is an effective form of social critique for these authors because it is equal opportunity, avoiding simplistic approaches to power and oppression in the postcolonial era. Satire often blames everyone—including itself—by insisting on irony, hypocrisy, and interdependence as existential conditions. Postcolonial satires ridicule victims and victimizers alike, exchanging the politics of blame for messiness, association, and implication. The satires examined here emphasize that we are all, to different degrees, mutually implicated subjects, especially in the era of global capitalism. This dissertation thus contests critics who argue that the subgenre engages in victim blaming, indulges in colonial-era stereotypes about the developing world, and supports political nihilism. Postcolonial satirists cut a path between the optimism expected of them and the fatalism they are accused of by offering a third path between that stifling dichotomy: a mutually implicating, humorous form of social critique that nuances neocolonial forms of power—including cynicism itself. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Betty Joseph, whose sharp attention to detail, thoughtful suggestions, candor, high standards, and enthusiasm encouraged me to write exactly the project I intended. Judith Roof has been an indispensable and trustworthy advisor and mentor to me since my first year at Rice. I cannot thank her enough for her blunt honesty, endless generosity, and unceasing support every step of the way. Both of these brilliant scholars made this project a joy and a privilege to write. Writing is a lonely act one might learn to love and embrace. But learning to love the art of writing is impossible without the support of loved ones waiting for you after the day’s work is done (or not done). Sydney Boyd, Abby Goode, Meina Yates-Richard, Sophia Hsu, Niffy Hargrave, Lindsey Chappell, AnaMaria Seglie, Michael Miller, Rodrigo Paula, Derek Woods— thank you for your friendship. To Laura Richardson, Seth Morton, and Alanna Beroiza—I am grateful and lucky to have you in my life (please don’t leave). Kristina McDonald has saved my life on more than one occasion and been a wonderful friend to me. I owe my still-existent sanity this past year to Payal Garehgrat, whose enduring support, passion for life, and love have made this project all the more worthwhile. To my loving mother and father, Luz and John: I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you proud. I owe everything I have today to both of you. This dissertation is for you. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iii Acknowledgments v Introduction Cynical Postcolonial Satire: African Beginnings, 1 Theoretical Underpinnings Chapter 1 Chinua Achebe and the Beautiful Soul 35 Chapter 2 Left Moralism in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses 51 Chapter 3 Hanif Kureishi’s Stylish Nihilism 104 Chapter 4 Neoliberal Narrative in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger 134 Conclusion How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 159 Notes 173 Bibliography 179 1 INTRODUCTION Cynical Postcolonial Satire: African Beginnings, Theoretical Underpinnings “There are two things in Indian history—one is the incredible optimism and potential of the place, and the other is the betrayal of that potential—for example, corruption. Those two strands intertwine through the whole of Indian history, and maybe not just Indian history.” —Salman Rushdie1 Ayi Kwei Armah’s 1968 satirical novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, epitomizes the genre of writing that titles this introduction. The novel’s protagonist is an impoverished and unnamed rail worker the third-person narrator refers to only as “the man.” Armah’s “man” spends the majority of the text trying to avoid the corruption, materialism, and degradation he sees as rampant in postcolonial Ghana, a place he condemns throughout the novel in a scatological idiom. His only confidante and refuge is his friend “The Teacher,” whose philosophy of despair the man contemplates and often enacts in his day-to-day life. When pondering the hopeful time of anticolonialism in Ghana, Teacher indicts Kwame Nkrumah and other socialist leaders in Africa for spreading an impossible idealism—a populist optimism that would eventually lead to the enrichment of few at the expense of many: How long will Africa be cursed with its leaders? There were men dying from the loss of hope, and others were finding gaudy ways to enjoy power they did not have. We were ready here for big and beautiful things, but what we had was our own black men hugging new paunches scrambling to ask the white man to welcome them onto our backs. These men who were to lead us out of our despair, they came like men already grown fat and cynical … How were these leaders to 2 know that while they were climbing up to shit in their people's faces, their people had seen their arseholes and drawn away in disgusted laughter? (82) The passage registers the disillusionment and resigned humor of many African authors following post-WWII decolonization. African intellectuals writing in the 1960s witnessed the rise of obscene kleptocracies, the comprador elite’s grotesque self-interest, and the abject poverty following decolonization, catalyzing their often self-loathing and self-satirizing portraits of a post-independence society betrayed by the high promises of anticolonial rhetoric. Often criticized for recreating the same colonial-era epithets anticolonial figures wrote against, these authors used scatological satire to express their frustration toward independence as neither triumphant nor revolutionary, but as the mere transfer of power from corrupt white elites to corrupt black elites. But even more important, these texts use excremental language to indict both the post-independence elite and the underclasses they oppress, deriding the former for engaging in the unabashed opportunism of the elite cynic, and the latter for resorting to the reconciled fatalism of the disempowered cynic. Armah’s novel exemplifies the genre of what I am calling cynical postcolonial satire, for in it both victims and victimizers are not only culpable (to varying degrees) for the failure of anticolonialism to lead to social revolution, but also representatives of the disempowering and opportunistic cynicisms born in the wake of what these authors saw as post-independence failure. Postcolonial Satire in Cynical Times explores cynical postcolonial satire as a genre both born of and addressed to the disillusionment following decolonization and other botched emancipatory projects throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It examines why many postcolonial authors from the 1960s onward—namely, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Aravind Adiga, and Mohsin Hamid—employ satire instead of the literary convention 3 with which they are often associated—sentimental realism. Satire is an effective form of social critique for the same reason it troubles critics: it cuts a path between the political optimism and pessimism that stifle contemporary discourse about the developing world. Critics of the subgenre declare sympathetic realism the most politically responsible means of representing the postcolonial condition, leading them to accuse satire of cynicism because it does not romanticize the oppressed or posit a clear normative claim. This scholarly expectation engages in a politics of blame that oversimplifies power relations and misidentifies new logics of coercion. Satire, by contrast, exchanges the politics of outrage, guilt, and absolution for a humorous social critique that stresses messiness, interdependence, and association. If the satires this dissertation examines highlight the forms of cynicism inflicting post-independence Africa, Thatcherite England, and global-capitalist India, then the project also opposes the moralistic criticism that claims postcolonial satire disavows politics, for these texts satirize precisely that disavowal. This introduction works as a chapter in its own right, showing throughout how Armah’s novel, its mixed reception, and recent critical theory set the stage for the subject matter, tenor, and reception of other, seemingly unrelated cynical postcolonial satires. As is the case with many of the satires discussed here, The Beautyful Ones prompted critics to accuse Armah of both victim-blaming and self-exempting intellectualism.2