Postcolonial Gothic in and as Theory

A number of cultural theorists and literary critics have identified the postcolonial as freighted with the legacies of colonialism. The Gothic has been invoked by some of these theorists to emphasize the effects of the colonial past in the postcolonial present. In some postcolonial fiction, the Gothic provides a framework or lens through which to analyse and discuss the postcolonial experience presented within that fiction. With others, however, the fictional text itself is the framework which interrogates and critiques the social, political and economic structures that shape the postcolonial experience. This chapter will consider the relationship between the Gothic and the postcolonial, as they inform and shape each other, with particular reference to the novels of the Australian writer, Mudrooroo, who in his Master of the Ghost Dreaming series (1991-2000) utilizes a range of literary and critical devices in order to excavate and foreground an Aboriginal voice.