Naming and the evolving condition of the african woman in “Perpétue”, “Who fears death?” y “Americanah”
Keywords:
African woman, subjectivity, naming, voice, Americanah, Perpétue, Who fears death?Copyright (c) 2023 Theophile Ambadiang
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Abstract
The paper aims to study the condition of the African woman as it has evolved since the colonial period on the basis of three novels: Americanah, Perpétue and Who fears death? We suggest that there is a correlation between the way in which the authors depict the subjectivity of the protagonists of their novels, in accordance with the complexity of their identities, and the way in which the latter are named as well as the names they are given. From this point of view, naming appears to be one of the most efficient recourses the authors use in order to give symbolic weight and credibility to the portrayal of the protagonists of their novels.
Downloads
References
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (2014): Americanah, New York, Random House.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2011): “On not calling people by their names: Pragmatic undertones of sociocultural relationships in a postcolony”, in Journal of Pragmatics, 43: 1472-1483.
Ambadiang (in press) Worldview, traditions, and trends in African magical realism (in press: Routledge)
Beti, Mongo (1974) Perpétue ou l’habitude du malheur, Paris, Chastel.
Biakolo, Anthony Omoghene (1979): «Entretien avec Mongo Beti », Peuple Noirs-Peuples Africains, 10: 86-121.
Deltel, Danielle (1990): Un message ambigu : Perpétue de Mongo Beti, in Stephen H. Arnold (Ed.), Critical perspectives on Mongo Beti, Boulder & London. Lynne Rienner Publishers:137-150.
Ellerman, Evelyn (1990): The passion of Perpetua: A generic approach to Beti`s Perpétue. In Stephen H. Arnold (Ed.), Critical perspectives on Mongo Beti, Boulder & London. Lynne Rienner Publishers: 125-135.
Jick, Henry & Andrew Tata Ngeh (2022): “Mongo Beti and liberty: A study of his and other names in his fiction”, in Global Journal of human Social Science: A. Arts & Humanities Psychology, 15, 3.
Kwenya, Joseph Michael Amolo (2022): Myth and counterfactuality in diasporic African women’s novels. Ph.D. Thesis Stellensbosch University.
Mulo Farenkia, B. (2011): “Formes de ‘mise à distance’ de l’altérité ethnique au Cameroun”, in Journal of Pragmatics, 43: 1484-1407.
Ndaka, Félix Mutonga (2020): “Undutiful daughter(s): troubling geographies of the gendered nation and belonging in Adichie’s Americanah and Atta’s Everything Good Will Come”, in Social Dynamics, 46, 2: 204-218.
Okorafor, Nnedi (2010): Who fears death?, New York, Penguin Oku, Arit (2021): “Afrofuturism and the reframing of gender in the fiction of Nnedi Okorafor”, in Feminist Africa, 2, 2:75-89.
Rathburn, Hayley (2018): “Black female objecthood, sexuality, and necropolitics in Afrofuturism: An examination of Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death” (Ms.) https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/writing_awards
Reuter, Stefanie (2015): “Becoming a subject: Developing a critical consciousness and coming to voice in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah (2015)”. In Anja Oed (Ed.), Reviewing the past, Negotiating the future: The African bildungsroman SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=2808396 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2808396