season of migration to the north
WANDERLUST AND THE GODDESS OF DEATH:
SEARCH FOR THE LOST MOTHER IN TAYEB SALIH’S
SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH
Vincent Walsh
Department of English
Lehigh University
Recent critical appraisal of Talib Salih’s richly woven, highly nuanced classic, Season of Migration to the North, focuses on two main areas; the second in many ways reflects the first. G.A.R. Hamilton and Patricia Geesey rely on Homi Babha’s notion of the “hybrid” to describe Mustafa Sa’eed, and emphasize the colonized subject’s inherent predisposition to contaminate imperial discourse as he reflects it back at colonizers. Native peoples are expected to turn into “reassuring mimics of the European form,” generated as representations of the “civilizing mission” (Hamilton 55) which is said to justify the imperial project, yet it never seems to work out this way. The colonized subject, having been drawn away from deep connection with his original culture by contact with Europeans, ends up suspended between cultures in an indeterminate space; he can never become fully assimilated into the ranks of the colonizers. At the same time, his adaptation of civilized norms inevitably entails a variation of response that subverts and undermines the authority of the civilizing discourse itself. According to this view, Mustafa Sa’eed’s treatment of women – which I think must be perceived as the central focus of the novel[1] -- is part of his conscious effort to subvert colonial rule and undermine the master discourse. Other critics, such as Benita Parry, Nouha Homad, and Joseph Lowry, extrapolate this idea of subversion to the point where they view it as the acting out of a deep-seated rage, driven by desire for revenge in the face of the perceived injustices of colonial oppression.[2] As Nouha Homad puts it rather succinctly, “the European woman has to pay for the humiliation her countrymen have caused to the people they colonize” (60). Although there can be no doubt that racial
SEARCH FOR THE LOST MOTHER IN TAYEB SALIH’S
SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH
Vincent Walsh
Department of English
Lehigh University
Recent critical appraisal of Talib Salih’s richly woven, highly nuanced classic, Season of Migration to the North, focuses on two main areas; the second in many ways reflects the first. G.A.R. Hamilton and Patricia Geesey rely on Homi Babha’s notion of the “hybrid” to describe Mustafa Sa’eed, and emphasize the colonized subject’s inherent predisposition to contaminate imperial discourse as he reflects it back at colonizers. Native peoples are expected to turn into “reassuring mimics of the European form,” generated as representations of the “civilizing mission” (Hamilton 55) which is said to justify the imperial project, yet it never seems to work out this way. The colonized subject, having been drawn away from deep connection with his original culture by contact with Europeans, ends up suspended between cultures in an indeterminate space; he can never become fully assimilated into the ranks of the colonizers. At the same time, his adaptation of civilized norms inevitably entails a variation of response that subverts and undermines the authority of the civilizing discourse itself. According to this view, Mustafa Sa’eed’s treatment of women – which I think must be perceived as the central focus of the novel[1] -- is part of his conscious effort to subvert colonial rule and undermine the master discourse. Other critics, such as Benita Parry, Nouha Homad, and Joseph Lowry, extrapolate this idea of subversion to the point where they view it as the acting out of a deep-seated rage, driven by desire for revenge in the face of the perceived injustices of colonial oppression.[2] As Nouha Homad puts it rather succinctly, “the European woman has to pay for the humiliation her countrymen have caused to the people they colonize” (60). Although there can be no doubt that racial