"Into Thin Air" Postcolonial Literary theory/ Section #3

looking at the final section of the novel through a Postcolonial literary criticism it is clear that the Sherpas show colonial oppression, their identities have been commercialised, and cultural identities taken away.

The effect that post colonialism had on Sherpas became obvious in this section, they were seen by the climbers as immortals to the mountain and were sometimes forced to do dangerous tasks that they did not want to do. Oppressed by their own image seen by the climbers Sherpas were also forced to climb with more equipment than others, despite their nature conditioning to the mountain, the physical labour was still more than they were used to, they were also forced to climb up and down the mountain several times, more then they could handle. This oppression would make them ignorant of there own mortality and usually would make them think that they themselves were immortals to the mountain, this would lead Sherpas to doing things that ended their lives.

Their identities were commercialised by colonialism in the early years of the exploration of the Himalayas by the explorers/climbers. This created an identity for them that were not true to their beliefs. They were seen as people of great physical powers to climb great heights without showing signs of exhaustion, but it was this image that slowly kills the population of Sherpas today.

The final sign that post colonialism had an effect on Sherpas was that there cultural identities was taken away. Although, it was not actually stricken from them like other colonisation's of the past, their beliefs were most often ignored by the leaders of their teams, and sometimes made their leaders angry because it would stop the Sherpas from doing tasks. An example would be when a Sherpa had a vision of a ghost visiting him warning him of the climb, this stopped that Sherpa from doing a task needed for the climb the next day.

It is obvious that there are signs of post colonialism on the Sherpas when I read this section of the novel. It showed signs of colonial oppression, their identities commercialised, and cultural identity stricken from them.