Abstract:
This article studies the concept of the Subaltern to find out who the subaltern actually are and why they cannot speak. According to the study of a number of works by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in particular her article entitled Can the Subaltern Speak?. It is found that the subaltern people are those who can neither use their voices to speak for themselves nor express their needs to others. Epistemic rationality which dominates Western thinking is the main factor that oppresses and obliterates the voice of the subaltern. Also it is found that, the subaltern are women and femininity which includes both women from the West and Third world women as well as people in the East who have been characterized as feminine being weak, passive and irrational. In the Western-white patriarchal world the subaltern will never be able to speak since there is no rational knowledge in the West to support their voice, including the fact that previous misrepresentations of the Subaltern produced by the West have not yet withered away. Spivak, thus, concludes that the subaltern cannot speak, and under the paradigm of knowledge that dominates, they will remain voiceless.