SOURCE: Moss, Laura. “‘The Plague of Normality’: Reconfiguring Realism in Postcolonial Theory.” Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 5, no. 1 (autumn 2000): available at (social.chass.nesu.edu/jouvert/v5i1/moss.htm).

In the following essay, Moss argues that despite widespread critical expectations that realistic novels tend to reinforce conservative ideology and that thus, they are not a suitable format for resistance narratives, the realistic format in novel-writing is a feasible form of social and political interaction in a postcolonial context.

In his exploration of contemporary realism Dennis Walder exclaims that “despite recent attempts to undermine the idea of realism as outdated or infected by humanist ideology, its use persists” (18). Perhaps one reason that realism not only persists but thrives, at least in many postcolonial contexts, is that contemporary postcolonial realist novels are capable of resistance.¹ This statement, I realize, is likely to raise a few eyebrows in skepticism...