When the Subaltern Speaks: Violence, Hybridity, and Decolonization in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (1972) (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)

چکیده

This study examines Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (1972) as a speculative representation of colonialism and resistance. The novella portrays a brutal encounter between Terran colonizers and the indigenous Athsheans, where colonialist exploitation threatens their identity, culture, and peaceful nature. Although existing scholarship on Le Guin’s work has explored ecological and feminist dimensions, this paper fills a gap in knowledge by examining other aspects, namely, colonial violence, dehumanization, and the process of decolonization. Through thematic and close textual analysis and drawing on the decolonial thought of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon, the postcolonial critique of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha, and Amílcar Cabral’s modes of resistance, this paper reflects on the traditional colonial dynamics to subvert its claim of progress and expose it as an enduring system of exploitation. It further examines resistance as a multi-layered phenomenon that both challenges and replicates colonial power dynamics. While portraying how hybrid identity enables new forms of agency within the process of decolonization, this paper contends that colonial domination goes beyond physical violence and oppression to encompass epistemic violence, cultural transformation, and deformed identity. Ultimately, it underscores the continuing relevance of Le Guin’s novella in critiquing imperial legacies through its imaginative futuristic context that transcends traditional colonial structures.