Contesting the Colonial Dichotomy of Centricity and Margins and the Hegemony of Authorial Discourse: Postcolonial and Postmodern Concerns in Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs

Abstract

Aim: This paper examines Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs as a postcolonial and postmodern rewriting of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. It aims to explore how Carey challenges colonial constructions of centre and margin, interrogates the authority of canonical literary discourse, and reclaims marginalised voices through the strategy of writing back to the British literary canon.

Methodology and Approach: The study adopts a qualitative textual and comparative approach grounded in postcolonial and postmodern literary theories. The paper examines the fictional representation of Tobias Oates, Carey’s counterpart to Dickens, to investigate questions of textual ownership, narrative authority, and the politics of literary representation.

Outcome: The analysis reveals that Jack Maggs destabilises colonial binaries of centre and periphery by repositioning the transported convict from the margins to the centre of the narrative. The novel challenges imperial assumptions regarding Australia as a penal colony while simultaneously exposing the mechanisms through which canonical authors appropriate and shape subordinate voices.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The study concludes that Jack Maggs functions as a powerful postcolonial counter-discourse and a sophisticated postmodern interrogation of authorial authority.  Future research may further investigate the intersections of postcolonial rewriting, neo-Victorian fiction, and metafictional strategies in contemporary literature to understand their role in reshaping literary and cultural memory.