Postcolonialism through the Lens of Eunice de Souza: Irony, Identity, and Everyday Resistance

Postcolonial Indian English poetry has often been concerned with nationhood, identity, and cultural negotiation in the aftermath of colonial rule. While much scholarship has focused on overt political or historical narratives, poets like Eunice de Souza offer a subtler yet incisive postcolonial critique rooted in everyday experience. This paper examines postcolonialism through the lens of Eunice de Souza’s poetry, arguing that her work articulates a distinctive form of postcolonial consciousness marked by irony, gendered critique, and cultural scepticism. By interrogating religion, middle-class morality, colonial legacies, and female subjectivity, de Souza exposes the internalized structures of domination that persist in postcolonial Indian society. Drawing upon postcolonial and feminist theoretical frameworks, the study demonstrates how de Souza transforms the personal and domestic into sites of resistance, thereby expanding the scope of postcolonial discourse beyond nationalist paradigms.