Hybridity, Mimicry, and Ambivalence: Re-Evaluation of Colonial Identity in Nadine Gordimer’s Selected Short Stories

Abstract

This research investigates the notion of identity in Gordimer’s short stories through Homi Bhabha’s Postcolonial theory and his
conception of hybridity, mimicry and ambivalence. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity gained currency in defining the postcolonial
vision that cultural systems interact and cannot be separated. Hybridity usually happens when people leave their own home
country or experience cross-cultural marriages and other forms of cultural and ethnic encounters. Mimicry is an increasingly
important term in Postcolonial theory which describes the ambivalent relationship between the colonizers and colonized,
described as the combination of attraction and repulsion, resulting in ambivalence. By rejecting the exoticism of cultural
diversity, Bhabha advocates the significance of hybridity by which cultural differences may operate. Through the analysis of
Gordimer’s short stories in the light of Homi Bhabha’s theory, the researchers shed light on how the colonizer and the colonized
interact. Moreover, it is concluded that the characters who cannot experience hybridity would lead a life of wandering and nonbelonging, which results in their inability to articulate their cultural agency.