Women as victims of colonization in selected texts

Ever since the beginning of human existence, patriarchal order has had a supreme effect on almost everything in the world. What I discuss in this thesis is that patriarchy is also a part of colonization. This thesis will explore selected texts which show colonization as a masculine scenario in which the male colonizers victimize even European white women as well as native women, though each suffers in different ways. To support this thesis, a number of postcolonial narrations, four short stories and two novels, will be explicated. The short stories which will be discussed in chronological order are Somerset Maugham Stories; ?Rain? (1921), ?The Fall of Edward Barnard? (1921), ?Before the Party? (1926), ?The Force of Circumstance? (1926), and the novels which will be discussed in chronological order are E.M. Forster?s A Passage to India (1924), George Orwell?s Burmese Days (1934). The story ?Rain? is a good example to indicate that the hypocrisy of the supposed sexual restraint of male missionaries has an important place in colonization. The story ?The Fall of Edward Barnard? basically tries to show the ups and downs of a European lady while she is waiting for her fiancée in the colony. The story ?Before the Party? clearly exposes the patriarchal treatment of a European family against their daughter assuming that the men must be right instead of taking time to understand their daughter?s position and takes the side of their son-in-law and supports him against her. In this story the revelation of the antecedent action comes slowly and dramatically as it does in ?The Force of Circumstance.? The novel A Passage to India shows how European women and native men could live in peace if European men do not interfere with this relationship. The novel Burmese Days tells the story of subordination of European women and the domination and exploitation of European males over European women as well as over native women. By discussing all the issues mentioned above, it is clear that colonization and patriarchy need to sacrifice both the European women and the natives for their own benefits. This thesis, therefore, states that patriarchal order exploits women in general