Allegory Of Derangement In Postcolonial Fiction: A Study Of Selected Novels From Africa

ABSTRACT

This study, „Allegory of Derangement in Postcolonial Fiction: A Study of Selected Novels from Africa‟ is based on analysis of four texts namely: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah, The Cockroach Dance by Meja Mwangi, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Ndangarembga, and Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe. It specifically examines how these writers explore political, social and cultural circumstances of society in relation to psychic processes. In this regard, the study is guided by three objectives. First, it looks at how writers depict different forms of derangement through characters. The second objective interrogates how the selected writers use literary language to represent emerging issues in the society applying derangement. The third objective focuses on how the writers create images of derangement in an attempt to put across their visions for the changing society. The study fills the gap in knowledge on the role of derangement in literary characters of selected African prose fiction. It argues that social, political and cultural settings affect the psychic states of the protagonist in the selected works as portrayed in the literary works. Other studies on postcolonial vision in Africa have given little attention on the role of derangement motif in analysing predisposing factors to derangement and how a writer crafts a vision of change through derangement. The study engages Homi Bhabha‟s split theory, Jameson‟s Rhetoric and Freud‟s psychoanalytic theory. In this light, Homi Bhabha‟s theory explores the relationship between postcolonial realism and the fictional world in the chosen works of study. Jameson‟s rhetoric theory describes the selected literary texts as allegories. Psychoanalytic theory is important in analysing the psychic dispositions of the characters. Since the study is mainly a textual analysis, a close reading of the selected texts was conducted to obtain primary data for analysis. As well, information was sourced from secondary sources like journals, relevant books, articles and the internet to augment primary data. The research established existence of various types of derangement in characters in the selected texts. It recommends an extensive study on specific gender experiences of derangement.