| Postcolonial theory deals with the complex relationship between the colonized and the colonizer. Many complications and difficulties currently exist within post-colonial discourse due to the fact that the clear binarism of East and West is hardly clear at all; rather, "polar oppositions are overly simplistic...and have become an increasingly problematic cliche of literary studies" (Booker 12). Contributions by theorists such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Edward Said, and Homi Bhabha regarding the notions of hybridity and essentialism continue to complicate a theory already wrought by unclear boundaries between East and West. An examination of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children shows that principles of chaos theory prove useful in the successful navigation of complex cultural relations that defy binary categories; chaos theory opens up a way of seeing that provides an essential reminder that theories are only as important as the particular parts that shape and reshape them. |
