Pantomime as a post-colonial play

“The Empire writes back to the centre”- Walcott’s play Pantomime, is an embodiment of this phrase,
as he creates a counter colonial discourse writing back to one of the colonial text Robinson Crusoe.
Contrary to the popular belief on Walcott rewriting it, he has actually written back to the colonizer.
He reverses the roles of the stereotypical ‘black’ and ‘white’ man, or as Said would term them as ‘the
orient and the occident’. The presentation of these two men of polar ethnic backgrounds allows
Walcott to examine the influences of colonization on the Caribbean identity, since Walcott himself is
a by product of this cultural ‘cook up’, he projects his personal opinions of identity onto the play.
Walcott utilizes the play within the play to dramatize the formation of a Caribbean identity
simultaneously questioning the authority of DeFeo’s sole narrator. This post-colonial play not only
reverses the roles of the colonizer and colonized, but Walcott also grants a voice to both entities
allowing the subaltern to speak. By allowing the presupposed subservient entity to speak, Walcott
contradicts decades of colonial writings in which the colonial other has always been silenced, this
action in itself is a rewriting of history as Walcott allows history to be told from a vastly different
perspective.
Therefore, the element of intertextuality is exceedingly important in writing back to the centre as it
is a means of creating a counter colonial discourse. The use of Robinson Crusoe in Pantomime
provides the reader with a point of reference for the post-colonial arguments that are presented by
Walcott. The notion of black and white is the opponent side that cannot be disconnected from each
other. That opponent side will be designed as dual disagreement, and it will form a different
character of human being. Black and white also could be characterized as postcolonial identity. In
Walcott’s Pantomime, the two male characters are voiced obscurely that sway the interpreters to
recognise the identity of the two male characters. Both the characters have created their identity, till
there is presence and absence inside their character, where the absence is veiled by the presence.
Also, all is controlled by language, whereas language is unhinged. This uncertainty irrevocably grants
the deficiencies of human identity in the characters of Pantomime. When both the male performers
act role shifting, they need to act mimicry also. Mimicry, in postcolonial literature, has been
annulment and adoption of some external cultural characteristics without forsaking native cultures.
Walcott’s Pantomime, as a postcolonial play, explicates mimicry as writing back to resituate the
conflict side between two parties: the English man epitomizes the colonizer and a Trinidadian man
denotes the colonized. In the end, the notion of black and white, through Jackson Phillip’s and Harry
Trewe’s performance in Pantomime will be formed into different identity of human being. In playing
the Ur-text of Defoe, Crusoe-Friday relation had proved to be “an ideal starting point for Walcott’s
inventive riff and reimagining of race relations between the modern-day protagonists, Jackson and
Trewe”
. Now in this two-actor play, the performers, Jackson and Harry hailing from fun milieu develop
beyond their determinate part of ‘text-bearer’. They practice performance as a graphical and social
occurrence, a process in which the relationships are conversed and power struggle fought out. As
their given part moves through cultural entanglements the text is primarily de-coded. Rich in
stratagems like role-playing, imitation, role swapping, code switching, now the ‘making’ of the
pantomime underscores revelation of the dramatic ideal. In the stirring combination of cultural
realities into the classical text, the power of textual authority begins to emerge weak. What shapes
and moulds the segment are the beliefs and subjective politics of both the characters as Jackson, in
the opening of Pantomime, broaches confutation of suppression and recognized identity:
“Jackson: Mr. Trewe, you come back with the same rack again? I tell you, I ain’t walking in front of a
set of tourists naked playing cannibal. Carnival, but not canni-bal”
Jackson’s verse highlights the injustices the colonised people faced as they were ruled over by the
colonizer. Jackson continues in this manner exposing the fact that even in a post-colonial era, there
is still a racial imbalance which is why he believes that even though slavery is over, he is still placed
in the position of the subservient entity in the society as the binary concept of black and white still
permeated the populas. However, Jackson proceeds in a revolutionary manner asserting that is
simply a matter of time before the positions are reversed.
Pantomime also reveals the spiritual abuse present in the history of Crusoe/Friday. The following
words by Jackson describe the slaves' colonial oppression and demonstrate bitterly and sharply the
violence and the ties between colonial masters and servants:
"Jackson: For three hundred years I served you breakfast in … in my white jack on a white veranda,
boss, bwana, effendi, bacra, sahib…in that sun that never set on your empire I was your shadow, I
did what you did, bwana, effendi, bacra, sahib… that was my pantomime. Every movement you
made, your shadow copied … and you smiled at me as a child does smile at his shadow’s helpless
obedience, boss, bwana, effendi, bacra, sahib, Mr. Crusoe"
Brydon and Tiffin said that Jackson, as the words indicate that is the once colonized victim. The
victimization has epitomized to the fact that they have forced into an environment where they have
no right to speak for themselves, according to phall centrism, or non-Westerns and the Third World.
They follow their masters' ways as they have told like a mist. In this sense, the title of the game is
becoming more relevant. As King emphasizes, Jackson and Trewe are actors and actors in Robinson
Crusoe's performance and their real lives as master and servant. They even perform the Pantomime
of themselves in their everyday life. In the colonial period, the colonized persons acknowledged their
position without questioning, and they did not differ from the parrots to imitate what their owners
said in their attempts to be like their masters. This tradition has also reached this date, as shown in
the above speech of Jacksons, during which he talks about the ongoing cycle of imitation, the
ambivalent colonial imitation and the master's service. The parrot in Pantomime is gaining
significance in this case. The parrot here is not only a description of the Robinson Crusoe paradox,
but also of the of corrupt a dishonest colonizer who has lost his or her language, culture and ability
to act as he or she wishes, and of the imitators who parrot what superior people are saying to them.
Ultimately the play, and the play within the play end in a promising way. Jackson whilst enacting the
pantomime allows Harry to overcome the subconscious racial prejudices he harboured. The catharsis
that occurs heals both characters as Harry is able to overcome the resentment for his wife along
with the loss of his son, and Jackson gains respect from the man who viewed him as just another
colonial other. The play ends with the men represented as equals. This reinforces Walcott’s play as a
literary work writing back to the centre as it does not simply do away with a character. Throughout
the play Walcott provides counter arguments for the colonial ideologies represented in Robinson
Crusoe by dramatizing a counter colonial discourse in his play Pantomime as he writes back to the
centre, representing the culture of the once colonized Caribbean.