CROSS-GENDER JOURNEY MOTIF IN DANIEL BLACK’S THEY TELL ME OF AHOME AND YAA GYASI’S HOMEGOING

Abstract
Representations of ‘Cross-Gender’ Journey motif means the marked difference(s) in ‘Cross-Gender’ experiences and challenges in diasporic milieu. Several studies have been carried out on journey motif, with little attention paid to ‘Cross-Gender’ journey motifs. This study focused on portraying how the patriarchal society in which both male and female genders find themselves tends to be the ultimate tool defining and creating in their psyche what strength cum weakness is, as such, the differences in their journeys. This is to map psychosocial ‘Cross-Gender’ journeys and how these journeys influence their mental and physical wellbeing.
This study was carried out through a psychoanalytical reading of the primary texts using Freudian psychoanalytical theory. This is because as much as journey is physical, it is also psychological, which is a product of what is invested in the psyche. The primary texts (Daniel Black’s They Tell Me of a Home and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing) are purposively selected from a male and a female authorship in order to foreground the aforementioned ‘Cross-Gender’ journey motif. The primary texts were analysed by incorporating literary, critical and comparative analysis. 
Hence, it was discovered from both texts that the female gender is oftentimes at the receiving end of all the activities embedded in a patriarchal society. On the other hand, the male gender, irrespective of the height of his challenges, sails through to achieve his dreams. The difference being that the female gender is always subjected to the men figures at one stage or another of her life. The male gender is left with the decision power to violate the order of things at one point or another of his life because his psyche has been imbued with the abilities that are totally the opposite of a female’s. Thus his gender favours the accomplishment of his dreams. As a result, there is difference in the portrayal of characters and the ideas locking in their psyche based on the individual author’s gender stance.
The study conclusively ended with the discovery that while a male gender returns home to rediscover the initial unhomely home, the female gender is not opportune. Her home is rather redirected or re-modified, being at the receiving end of patriarchy (marriage and other attendant outcomes), lest she remain unmarried, single or termed promiscuous.
Word Count: 388
Key Words: ‘Cross-Gender’, gender, journey motif, journey, different, psyche

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page                                                 1
Dedication                                                                                                                        2
Acknowledgements                                        3-4
Abstract                                            5
Certification                                            6
Table of Contents                                        7-8
CHAPTER
I. Motif of Journey in African American Literature                          9-15
i. Significance of Cross-Gender Journey Motif                          15-20
II. Navigating Perspectives on Journey Motif                          21-32
i. A Discourse on Cross-Gender Journey Motif                          32-34
ii. Theoretical Framework                                      34-36
iii. Methodology                                          36-37

III. Hostility, Self-Discovery and (Re) Discovery of Home in Daniel Black’s
They Tell Me of a Home                                38-39
i. A Narrative of Self: Daniel Black’s They Tell Me of a Home                   39-47
ii. Hostility of Home as a Driving Force for Physical Flight                   47-55
iii. Self Discovery and (Re) Discovery of Home                          55-59

IV. Negotiating the Driving Forces of Journey in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing              60-61
i. Rewriting the History of Her People: Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing                  61-67
ii. Slavery and Other Attendant Causal Factors to Journey                      67-74   
iii. Conceptualizing Home                                      74-75

V. Conclusion: Rediscovering Home as a Place of Return                      76-79

Works Cited           80-83