Within the conventions of postcolonial literary analysis and criticism, a main focus has been continually set on interpersonal relations and interactions between different characters, mostly when such characters belong to opposing cultural groups. Such encounters between colonizer and colonized, or between members of the colonized group with differing attitudes towards the colonizing hegemony, represent the often contradictory, occasionally turbulent, always uneasy motion of power through the local postcolonial contexts. Naturally, people – or other characters with human features – have always been the main carriers of plot and narrative, hence the critical focus on them appears readily acceptable. However, the cultural impact of colonial forces extends, in time and scope, beyond the point of conquest and settlement, and could be felt in subtler yet no less pervasive manifestations. One such manifestation could be found in the inanimate objects produced and employed by both indigenous and foreign cultures, and in the varied purposes these items are used for. These items, beyond their intended practical uses, can also be symbolic of their respective cultures, and of the intercultural encounters that have reshaped them and their functions.
In this paper, I explore the postcolonial perspective of short literary texts, as it expresses itself in the commodities and artefacts that provide narrative pivots for these stories.
