The essay explores the antagonism between the traditional and the modern in Jessica Hagedorn's novel Dogeater. The author suggests that the protagonist becomes conscious of the inadequacies in both Western modernity and local nativism and realizes the need to revise modernity according to the exigencies of specific post-colonial conditions. For the author, the novel suggests that modernity is not simply derivative; on the contrary, post-colonial subjects are the ones who are finally responsible for shaping and realizing their own modernity.