Mapping the Postmodern/Postcolonial : Jameson’s Cognitive Mapping as a Means of Reading Nuruddin Farah’s Maps

Abstract

Mapping the Postmodern/Postcolonial : Jameson’s Cognitive Mapping as a Means of Reading Nuruddin Farah’s Maps Maps can be classified as a postmodern text in many ways. This is somewhat of a problem in discussing a postcolonial text. However, keeping this in mind, as Farah brings into question notions of individuality, nationality and even gender, cognitive mapping is a useful tool in explaining what is happening to Askar and helps reveal how he fails in his efforts, as an allegorical figure. Farah addresses issues of personal and national identity, the fragmentation that Fredric Jameson notes as symptomatic of postmodernity appears in the writer’s style as well as in his subject matter and message. In addition to being fragmented and lacking any sort of closure, Maps revolves around Askar’s inability to find his place in society and around his efforts to do so. The narrative voice, in telling Askar’s story, moves freely between first person, second person, and third person. The “I,” “you,” and “he” of the story is always Askar but indicates that he lacks a sense of wholeness. Senses of time and of reality in the novel become confusing as the narrative moves forward and backward in time between Askar’s childhood and adulthood and back and forth between dream states and reality. Maps seems to long for a formal totality, but Farah does not actually attempt it.