Gayatri’s article ‘Can the Subaltern speak’ is an attack directed at the contemporary critical theory, which is represented by Foucault and Deleuze. Gayatri seeks to attack the tradition of Carl Marx and those that follow this tradition. According to her, these followers work alongside the negative traditions in the world, which include essentialism, false claims to transparency and objectivity, imperialism and capitalism, institutionalism, and chauvinism.
The contemporary critical theory, as held by western countries, represents third-world countries in a biased manner. The title of the book is a formulation of the question, ‘can the oppressor speak?’, unto which the answer is ‘no’. The oppressed cannot speak because the oppressor, immersed in his westernized notions of ethnocentrism and economic supremacy, has neither time nor ear to listen to the oppressed. The oppressor, on the other hand, cannot speak to the oppressed as he knows nothing about the oppressed because he does not listen to them.
Both the oppressor and the oppressed are interlocked in the dumb-deaf circle, where no one listens to the other, and no one speaks because no one listens. There can only be one voice that can speak and, which can be heard, the voice of the author, a female researcher.
Her hybrid status, which is neither traditionally male nor traditionally oppressed, is the only hope for the oppressed. This voice seeks to employ the lacking virtues of objectivity and transparency, which are lacking in Foucault and Deleuze’s contemporary theory. This shows that the hope for the oppressed, who is a member of the third world, lies in the most unexpected of areas; women and education (Gayatri 290). Women, in this case, refer to the social minorities, who must get empowered through education in order to make their voices heard.
Works Cited
Gayatri, Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education. 1988. Print.