Journal Title

Kritika Kultura

Title of the Article

The Colonial Doubling, or the Challenge for Colonial Authority

Subject

hybridity

Indonesian literature

nationalism

postcolonial novel

list of authors

Yohannes Hartadi

Abstract

This essay dscusses R.M. Minke's (partial) presence in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's The Buru Quartet. The quartet starts with signs exibiting the triumph of western colonialism in the Dutch East Indies. The Western-educated Minke acknowledges the superiority of Western science and technology. He writes in Dutch, the signifier of the colonial authority. This esssay examines Minkes's doption of Western culture and the colonial representation where his (partial) presence challenges the authority of colonial discourse. Framed within Bhabha's theory of hybridity, this essay will find out how the colonial discourse is always in the stateof splitting which menaces the colonial authority.