Childhood in contemporary nigerian fiction
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| TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ....................................................................................................................... i DECLARATION ................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION CONSTRUCTING CHILDHOOD AS A SET OF IDEAS ................................................ 1 1.1 Childhood, the Contemporary and the Diasporic ..................................................... 1 1.2 Foregrounding the Concept of Childhood in Contemporary Nigerian fiction .......... 9 1.3 Reading Childhood A Literary Historiography ..................................................... 13 1.4 Theorising Childhood Critical and Conceptual Contexts ...................................... 27 2.0 CHAPTER TWO ALTERNATIVE TIMES) AND HISTORIES. ............................................................... 43 2.1 Introduction Representation of Childhood as an “architext of memory .............. 43 2.2 The alternative Archive, History and Time in the Narrative of Childhood ........... 47 2.3 Narrative Memory and Literary Historiography ..................................................... 52 2.4 Childhood as a Representation of the Everyday in Purple Hibiscus ...................... 56 2.4.1 the trauma memory of everyday life .................................................................... 67 2.4.2 nostalgia and a liberating memoryscape. ............................................................. 73 2.5 Memory of War Trauma, Textual Archive and Cultural Memory in Half of a Yellow Sun. .................................................................................................................... 81 2.5.1 a return to the everyday memory of war composite consciousnesses ................ 88 2.5.2 collective memory and trauma composite memories of war .............................. 95 2.6 Popular Cultural Memory in Chris Abani‟s Graceland: Material Cultures of Memory ....................................................................................................................... 106 2.6.1 material cultures as a source of memory. 111 2.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 119 viii 3.0 CHAPTER THREE DIALOGIC STRATEGIES AND (INTER)TEXTUALITIES IN CHILDHOOD. ........ 121 3.1 Introduction Childhood, (inter)textuality and the Literary Chronotope .............. 121 3.2 Dialogic Childhoods Chronotopicity in Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun ..................................................................................................................................... 126 3.2.1 childhood and the literary chronotope ............................................................... 126 3.2.2 countries of the mind spacetime chronotopes in Purple Hibiscus ................ 135 3.2.3 chronotopicity and cartographies of violence in Half of a Yellow Sun .............. 145 3.3 Dystopian and Utopian Childhoods Navigating the Lagos Cityscape in Chris Abani‟s Graceland ...................................................................................................... 161 3.3.1 navigating the city landscapes of desires, poetic geographies entropic realities. 167 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 178 4.0 CHAPTER FOUR GENEALOGIES, DAUGHTERS OF SENTIMENT, SONS AND FATHERS. ........... 180 4.1 Introduction Genealogies and Father Figures ...................................................... 180 4.2 In Her Fathers House The Sentimental Daughter in Purple Hibiscus and Everything Good Will Come. ...................................................................................... 189 4.2.1 the ontology of fatherhood ................................................................................. 189 4.2.2 the sentimental disposition of daughterhood ..................................................... 200 4.2.3 the death and falsity of fatherhood ............................................................. 210 4.3 In the Name of the Son Critical Legitimacy of Fatherhood, Sonhood and Masculinities in Abani‟s Graceland and The Virgin of Flames. ................................ 215 4.3.1 false fatherhood and critical legitimacy ......................................................... 215 4.3.2 postcolonial sonhood(s): material dystopia and cultural utopia ........................ 218 4.3.3 a view from elsewhere cross-gender discourse and androgynous sonhoods 223 4.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 231 5.0 CHAPTER FIVE CHILDHOODS AS POSTMODERN IDENTITIES. 233 5.1 Introduction Childhood as Embodiment of Diaspora .......................................... 233 5.2 Diasporic Childhoods Worlds against interpretation ....................................... 237 5.3 Limitless vistas of fantasy Reading the Magic and Reality of abiku Childhood. 245 5.4 The Racialised Abiku in Helen Oyeyemi‟s The Icarus Girl ................................. 252 ix 5.5 Childhoods of the New Diaspora in The Opposite House ................................. 281 5.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 296 6.0 CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 298 6.1 Identity and Childhood Negotiating the Postcolonial and Postmodern ............... BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 316 |