Unpredictability is a childhood adversity that contributes to mental health problems.

Postcolonial criticism has emerged as a central paradigm in literary studies by offering critical vocabularies that interrogate the ways in which literature represents power, identity, and cultural negotiation. In contrast to earlier formalist approaches that privileged esthetic autonomy, postcolonial criticism insists that literary texts are deeply entangled with historical and political processes. By focusing on the intersections between empire, language, and representation, it exposes how narratives of domination and resistance are encoded in literary forms and how they continue to shape interpretive practices across global contexts. Rooted in anti-colonial intellectual traditions, including Fanon’s critique of colonial domination and Said’s critique of Orientalism, postcolonial criticism fundamentally challenges Western, white, Eurocentric universalism and the knowledge hierarchies produced through colonial power. This shift marks not merely a methodological innovation but a transformation in the very purpose of reading and teaching literature, situating interpretation within broader ideological struggles. The intellectual trajectory of this field underscores its historical depth and continuing vitality. As notes, postcolonial theory not only grapples with the material and psychological legacies of colonialism but also addresses the epistemic hierarchies that structure global systems of knowledge and cultural production. Its insights reach far beyond formerly colonized nations, inviting scholars to reconsider how notions of modernity, civilization, and culture have been discursively constructed. By situating texts within transnational circuits of power and exchange, postcolonial criticism expands the scope of interpretation beyond national canons, creating an analytical framework that links literature to the politics of globalization and identity formation (). In this sense, postcolonial criticism is not simply a theory about colonial history; it is also a critical method for examining how power defines whose voices are heard, whose identities are marginalized, and whose knowledge is treated as universal. Within this broad intellectual landscape, postcolonial theory also presents distinctive pedagogical implications. The same theoretical sophistication that enriches scholarly debates can generate challenges in educational contexts, where students encounter complex terminologies, such as otherness, hybridity, mimicry, subalternity, and ambivalence, that often lack immediate referents in their own cultural experiences. In this study, these five concepts are treated as the focal postcolonial concepts because they capture key dimensions of representation, identity negotiation, imitation, marginal voice, and unstable attachment to dominant cultural authority. When theory is transplanted from the realm of academic discourse into the classroom, the risk arises that it may become an exercise in rote memorization rather than critical engagement. Hence, educators face the task of translating highly abstract theoretical discourses into learning experiences that are both intellectually rigorous and accessible to diverse student audiences.