This blog post examines how the concept of ambivalence, central to decolonial theory, fractures the archetypes within colonial literature and disrupts the identities of both colonizers and colonized, offering a more multidimensional understanding of its significance.
Ambivalence is one concept that has sparked significant debate in recent decolonial literary studies. Originally a psychological term denoting the state of simultaneously desiring something and its exact opposite, decolonial theorists extend this concept to understand it as a general characteristic of the colonial situation. Specifically, they argue that the identities, languages, and cultures of both colonizers and colonized are inherently fractured and contradictory. The representative example presented here is the ‘split stereotype’. Originally, a stereotype signifies a fixed image. However, when the colonizer depicts the colonized in literary works, this stereotype appears as a form that is split, contradictory, and constantly oscillates between two ambivalent images—as the expression ‘the loyal liar’ aptly demonstrates. This fluid stereotype of the colonized, or ‘represented otherness,’ destabilizes the colonizer’s own identity as they use it as a mirror to construct their own identity.
When the colonizer attempts to civilize the colonized according to the standards of the motherland, or conversely, when the colonized voluntarily seeks to assimilate into the colonizer, the colonized inevitably mimics the colonizer’s culture, language, and so forth. However, no matter how hard the colonized strive to imitate the colonizer, this imitation never becomes a perfect replica. This stems partly from the colonizer’s deliberate incomplete transmission of their homeland’s culture and language, driven by fear of the colonized’s complete assimilation, and partly from the contextual differences in history, tradition, language, and other factors between the two sides. Therefore, the colonized’s imitation remains an ‘afterimage’ that appears almost identical but is never truly the same. Furthermore, the differences arising during the imitation process can also be intentionally created by the colonized. While imitating the colonizer’s culture and discourse, the colonized deliberately introduce differences with the purpose of twisting and mocking it; this is called ‘appropriation’.
A crucial point to note here is that the colonizer’s discourse and culture, which should inherently be sacred and authoritative, become contaminated and damaged through the colonized subject’s mimicry and appropriation. Decolonial theory, precisely for this reason, views both mimicry and appropriation as functioning as ‘resistance’ against the colonizer, thereby broadening the concept of resistance beyond its conventional scope. Viewed this way, even the colonized subject’s conscious act of assimilation can be understood as unconscious resistance that creates difference. The expression ‘Black Shakespeare,’ which mimics the colonizer’s literature, also demonstrates resistance to the colonizer—whether conscious or unconscious—precisely through that difference.
Imitation and appropriation cause the cultures, discourses, races, and languages of colonizers and colonized to intermingle; this mingling is termed ‘hybridity’. Hybridity is not a characteristic exclusive to the colonized; it is a phenomenon that also manifests in the colonizer through mutual contagion and transformation occurring between colonizer and colonized. Considering that colonialism presupposes absolute and insurmountable differences and hierarchies, hybridity is a threatening concept to the colonizer. If both colonizer and colonized acquire contaminated, fluid hybrid identities, the very foundation of the colonizer’s claimed superiority—and indeed, the basis of colonial rule itself—is inevitably shaken to its core.
By introducing this ambivalent concept, research on modern Korean literature has gained a new perspective to interpret diverse colonial experiences that cannot be explained solely through the nationalist dichotomy of pro-Japanese and anti-Japanese. Simultaneously, it has secured the possibility of critiquing colonial rule itself. Nationalism, whether applied to the colonized or the colonizer, assumes identity as singular and fixed, emphasizing that strengthening the national identity of the colonized is the best way to overcome colonial rule. For this reason, nationalism has failed to pay sufficient attention to the everyday, complex colonial experiences that cannot be defined by the pro-Japanese/anti-Japanese dichotomy. Postcolonial literary studies transcend these limitations, enabling the discovery of diverse possibilities for literary resistance formed under colonial rule.
