The Image of the Colonizer and Colonized in Albert Camus’ The Plague and Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma

Abstract

The (re)presentation of the colonizer and colonized becomes the most controversial post-colonial issue, for it catches the attention of hosts of modern critics and writers due to its importance. Yet, the unfair representation of the colonized by writers during colonial era causes a severe tension in the relationship between the colonizer and colonized, especially on the part of the colonized whose image has been completely distorted by some colonial stories, and this is what paves the way to the emergence of post-colonial era, which tends to challenge and revise colonial stories by offering the chance to the colonized to speak and re-narrate the story from his own point of view. The present work tends to unveil the real truth as far as the image of the colonizer and colonized is concerned, and post-colonial approach suits this kind of research. In doing so, the works of both authors; Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma and Albert Camus’ The Plague are quite important because the first one is written by an Algerian colonized writer and the other by a French colonizer are important because each writer seeks to present the real truth about the colonizer and colonized through different standing- point. This thesis, then, tends to explore the image of the colonizer and colonized as an attempt to figure out which story holds the seeds of truth; the story told by the colonizer or the one recounted by the colonized. This work attempts to re-examine colonial narratives and restore all the missing pieces of (hi) story which are blurred by the colonizer. It is also an opportunity to debunk the grotesque deeds of the colonizer and retrieve the dignity of the colonized.