I should perhaps point out that colonialist criticism is not always as crude as this but the exaggerated grossness of a particular example may sometimes prove useful in studying the anatomy of the species. There are three principal parts here: Africa's inglorious past （raffia skirts） to which Europe brings the blessing of civilization （Achebe'smodern job in Lagos） and for which Africa returns ingratitude （sceptical novels like Things Fall Apart（《瓦解》（Things Fall Apart）發表於 1958年，是一部以英語寫作的最具影響力的非洲小說，該小說體裁頗似曆史風俗小說，而結構上又遵循傳記小說的傳統，作家描寫烏穆奧非亞村在歐洲殖民者到來前後的巨大變化，以富於情感的筆觸勾勒了非洲伊博人的傳統村落文化，在向外界介紹本民族過去的同時，也激勵族人肯定並珍視自己的本土文化。））.
Before I go on to more advanced varieties I must give one more example of the same kind as Honor Tracy's which on account of its recentness （1970） actually surprised me：
The British administration not only safeguarded women from the worst tyrannies of their masters, it also enabled them to make their long journeys to farm or market without armed guard, secure from the menace of hostile neighbours. The Nigerian novelists who have written the charming and bucolic accounts of domestic harmony in African rural communities, are the sons whom the labours of these women educated; the peaceful village of their childhood to which they nostalgically look back was one which had been purged of bloodshed and alcoholism by an ague-ridden district officer and a Scottish mission lassie whose years were cut short by every kind of intestinal parasite.
It is even true to say that one of the most nostalgically convincing of the rural African novelists used as his sourcebook not the memories of his grandfathers but the records of the despised British anthropologists. The modern African myth-maker hands down a vision of colonial rule in which the native powers are chivalrously viewed through the eyes of the hard-won liberal tradition of the late Victorian scholar, while the expatriates are shown as schoolboys' blackboard caricatures.
（Andreski 1971：26）
I have quoted this at such length because first of all I am intrigued by Iris Andreski's（Iris Andreski著有Old wives' tales: life-stories of African women一書，作者在該書中表現出明顯的種族中心主義（ethnocentricity），對非洲伊比比奧族（Ibibio）社會文化持歧視和否定的態度。） literary style which recalls so faithfully the sedate prose of the district officer government anthropologist of sixty or seventy years ago—a tribute to her remarkable powers of identification as well as to the durability of colonialist rhetoric. “Tyrannies of their masters” ... “menace of hostile neighbours” ... “purged of bloodshed and alcoholism”. But in addition to this Iris Andreski advances the position taken by Honor Tracy in one significant and crucial direction—its claim to a deeper knowledge and a more reliable appraisal of Africa than the educated African writer has shown himself capable of.
To the colonialist mind it was always of the utmost importance to be able to say: “I know my natives”, a claim which implied two things at once: （a） that the native was really quite simple and （b） that understanding him and controlling him went hand in hand—understanding being a precondition for control and control constituting adequate proof of understanding. Thus in the heyday of colonialism any serious incident of native unrest, carrying as it did disquieting intimations of slipping control, was an occasion not only for pacification by the soldiers but also （afterwards） for a royal commission of inquiry—a grand name for yet another perfunctory study of native psychology and institutions.
Meanwhile a new situation was slowly developing as a handful of natives began to acquire European education and then to challenge Europe's presence and position in their native land with the intellectual weapons of Europe itself. To deal with this phenomenal presumption the colonialist devised two contradictory arguments. He created the “man of two worlds” theory to prove that no matter how much the native was exposed to European influences he could never truly absorb them; like Prester John1 he would always discard the mask of civilization when the crucial hour came and reveal his true face. Now, did this mean that the educated native was no different at all from his brothers in the bush? Oh, no! He was different; he was worse.
His abortive effort at education and culture though leaving him totally unredeemed and unregenerated had none the less done something to him—it had deprived him of his links with his own people whom he no longer even understood and who certainly wanted none of his dissatisfaction or pretensions. “I know my natives; they are delighted with the way things are. It'sonly these half-educated ruffians who don't even know their own people.” How often one heard that and the many variations of it in colonial times! And how almost amusing to find its legacy in the colonialist criticism of our literature today! Iris Andreski'sbook is more than old wives' tales, at least in intention. It is clearly inspired by the desire to undercut the educated African witness （the modern myth-maker, she calls him） by appealing direct to the unspoilt woman of the bush who has retained a healthy gratitude for Europe'sintervention in Africa. This desire accounts for all that reliance one finds in modern European travellers' tales on the evidence of “simple natives”—houseboys, cooks, drivers, schoolchildren—supposedly more trustworthy than the smart alecs....
In his book, The Emergence of African Fiction, Charles Larson（查爾斯·拉森（Charles Larson）：印第安納大學教授，以非洲文學研究著稱，批評著述包括The Emergence of African Fiction（1972）, American Indian Fiction（1978），此外還發表有傳記、小說和隨筆作品，如Invisible Darkness: Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen（1993）, The Insect Colony（1978）, Arthur Dimmesdale（1983）, Academia Nuts（1977）等。） tells us a few revealing things about universality. In a chapter devoted to Lenrie Peters's（萊裏·彼得斯（Lenrie Peters, 1932—）：岡比亞詩人、小說家，在英國劍橋和倫敦大學接受教育，後回國在行醫的同時致力於文學創作，其作品在探討普遍的人類經驗的同時也表現出對非洲現狀和傳統的關注，發表的詩歌有Poems （1964）, Satellites （1967）, Selected Poetry （1981）等，此外還有一部小說The Second Round （1965）問世。） novel which he finds particularly impressive he speaks of its universality, its very limited concern with Africa itself. Then he goes on to spell it all out：
That it is set in Africa appears to be accidental, for, except for a few comments at the beginning, Peters's story might just as easily take place in the southern part of the United States or in the southern regions of France—or Italy. If a few names of characters and places were changed one would indeed feel that this was an American novel. In short, Peters'sstory is universal.
（Larson 1971：230）