ABSTRACT
Perhaps one of the most important abilities critical theory develops in us is the ability to see connections where we didn’t know they existed: for example, connections between our personal psychological conicts and the way we interpret a poem, between the ideologies we’ve internalized and the literary works we nd aesthetically pleasing, between a nation’s political climate and what its intellectuals consider “great” literature, and so forth. Most of the critical theories we’ve studied so far have encouraged us to make connections along one or more of these lines. Postcolonial criticism is particularly effective at helping us see connections among all the domains of our experience-the psychological, ideological, social, political, intellectual, and aesthetic-in ways that show us just how inseparable these categories are in our lived experience of ourselves and our world. In addition, postcolonial theory offers us a framework for examining the similarities among all critical theories that deal with human oppression, such as Marxism; feminism; gay, lesbian, and queer theories; and African American theory.
