A study of the Parodic Postcolonial and Postcolonial Gothic Fiction

There are a group of novels that many critics have categorized as post-colonial, or those that are ¿writing back.¿ These novels include Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Jack Maggs by Peter Carey, and Foe by J. M. Coetzee. Postcolonialism is also regarded as a form of parody. However, this genre is sometimes distanced from its original purpose, which is writing back at colonial texts. It is a parody that parodies itself. By doing so, postcolonialism widens the scope of parody and its function; that is, if postcolonialism is a parody of colonialism, and if the Gothic is itself a parodic genre, then Wide Sargasso Sea, Foe, and Jack Maggs can also be classified as what I will call ¿double-parodies,¿ since they parody parodies. They not only parody some features of postcolonialism but also postcolonial Gothic fiction. Among the features that make the works under focus parodic postcolonial works, there is the condition of women and the working class, slaves, and working class men and women that depict no change. These groups are colonized, oppressed, and manipulated. Parody mainly functions through exaggerating certain traits to ludicrous effect in the novels under study.