Put the postcolonial theory of Edward Said, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and/or Aime Cesaire into practice by analyzing The Letter of Christopher Columbus on the Discovery of America for the ways that it operates within and as colonial discourse. Your primary focus should
be the literary text but what you want to do is to analyze your chosen literary text using the theory to illuminate how that texts functions
within colonial discourse.You cant effectively address every major theoretical idea we have examined, so be sure to keep a narrow focus on one or two (or maybe three) key points. For instance, you might take up Saids assertion that the things to look at are style, figures of speech [tropes], setting
to analyze a pattern of similar colonialist tropes in three of the literary texts. Or, you might draw from Said and/or Mohanty to focus your argument on the gendered aspects of colonial discourse (eg. Mohanty argues that
while Mohantys focus is on writings by white, First World feminists, similar orientalist representations are evident in the 19th writing of
). These are just examples of how you might approach the essay. The focus of your analysis is ultimately up to you.