In any colony, relationships depend on power. Power refers to the ability to control a country, an area, or an individual as well as the ability to impose particular rules and restrictions on the natives of the area in question. Of course, power may take different degrees and forms. The colonizer does not need, in all cases, to use force. As Said (1979) put it, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is “a power relationship.” For the colonized, the only safe way is to conform and be quiet. S/he is to deny the self and all will be well. This paper explores the colonial relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in the light of what is said above in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Such literary works render the relationship of both the colonizer and the colonized into fixed, oppositional terms, which remain influential at all times. |
