MUTLAK ÖTEKI: BUCHI EMECHETA’NIN SECOND CLASS CITIZEN ROMANINDA ADAH OBI
Sömürgecilik sonrası dönemin önemli romancılarından Buchi Emecheta Nijerya ve İngiltere’deki sömürgecilik konularını sunumu bakımından İngiliz edebiyatının önde gelen isimlerinden biri olarak görülebilir. Yeterli eleştirel ilgiyi görmese de Emecheta eski bir İngiliz sömürgesi olan Nijerya’daki ve İngiltere’deki göçmen deneyimini anlatır. Yerli Afrikalı toplum ile İngiliz toplumu arasında sorunlu ilişkiler Second Class Citizen romanında ele alınmaktadır. Roman, başkahraman Adah Obi’nin yerli halka sömürgecilik söylemleriyle birlikte dayatılan toplumsal değerleri benimseme çabasını sömürgecilik sonrası dönemin bakış açısıyla yansıtması bakımından son derece önemlidir. Bu makale kadın başkahraman Adah Obi’nin günümüzde Nijerya’da ve İngiltere’de görülen güçlü ataerkil ve sömürgeci söylemler altında ezildiğini ve Adah’nın bir siyahi, bir kadın ve bir göçmen olarak mutlak öteki şeklinde nitelenebileceğini savunmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler:
Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen, Nijerya, İngiltere, sömürgecilik sonrası, taklit etme, öteki
THE ULTIMATE OTHER: ADAH OBI IN BUCHI EMECHETA’S SECOND CLASS CITIZEN
As one of the important novelists in the postcolonial era, Buchi Emecheta may be thought to be a pioneering figure in English literature in terms of her representation of colonial issues in Nigeria and Britain. Although she has not received much critical attention as she deserved, Emecheta narrates her own experiences in Nigeria, a former British colony after the independence, and in Britain as an immigrant. Emecheta represents the problematic relationships in the native African community and the British society in her novel Second Class Citizen. The novel is quite significant in terms of the illustration of the protagonist Adah Obi’s attempt to adopt social values imposed on the native community in line with the colonial discourse although it takes place in the postcolonial era. This article argues that the female protagonist Adah Obi suffers from the patriarchal and colonial discourses dominant in the contemporary Nigerian and British societies and Adah is portrayed as the ultimate other due to her disadvantageous position as a black, a woman and an immigrant.
Keywords:
Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen, Nigeria, Britain, postcolonial, mimicry, the other,
___
- AGHO Jude and OSIGHALE Francis: (2008). “‘Wonder Women’: Towards a Feminization of Heroism in the African Fiction: A Study of the Heroines in Second Class Citizen and God’s Bits of Wood”, LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 5, pp. 181-191.
- ALLAN T. Jita: (1995). Womanist and Feminist Aesthetics: A Comparative Review, Athens, Ohio University Press.
- BARTHELEMY Anthony: (1989). “Western Time, African Lives: Time in the Novels of Buchi Emecheta”, Callaloo, 40 (Summer), pp. 559-574.
- BHABHA Homi: (1995). The Location of Culture, London, Routledge.
- CESAIRE Aimé: (1972). Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York, Review Press.
- EMECHETA Buchi: (1989). Second Class Citizen, London, Hodder and Stoughton. FANON Frantz:
- (1967). The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
- IYER Lisa H.: (1995). “Africa as a Second Class Citizen: When Will Things Finally Fall Apart?”, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 23 (1), pp. 27-30.
- PORTER Abioseh Michael: (1995). “Second Class Citizen: The Point of Departure for Understanding Buchi Emecheta’s Major Fiction”, Emerging Perspectives on Buchi Emecheta, pp. 267-277, Trenton: Africa World Press.
- URAIZEE Joya: (2000). This is No Place For a Woman: Nadine Gordimer, Nayantara Sahgal, Buchi Emecheta and the Politics of Gender, Trenton, Africa World Press. WARD Cynthia: (1990). “What They Told Buchi Emecheta: Oral Subjectivity and the Joys of ‘Otherhood’”, PMLA, 105 (1), pp. 83-97.
- ISSN: 1308-6200
- Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 4 Sayı
- Başlangıç: 2008
- Yayıncı: Kültür Ajans