Ama Ata Aidoo's Black-eyed Squint and the 'Voyage in' Experience: Dis(re)orienting Blackness and Subverting the Colonial Tale

Authors: Lhoussain Simour

Abstract:

This essay endeavors to read Ama Ata Aidoo-s Our Sister Killjoy with a postocolonially-inflected consciousness. It aims at demonstrating how her work could be read as a sophisticated postcolonial revision of the colonial travel narrative whereby the protagonist-s black-eyed squint operates as 'the all-seeing-eye' to subvert the historically unbroken legacy of the Orientalist ideology. It tries to demonstrate how Sissie assumes authority and voice in an act that destabilizes the traditionally established modes of western representation. It is also an investigation into how Aidoo-s text adopts processes which disengage the Eurocentric view produced by the discursive itineraries of western institutions through diverse acts of resistance and 'various strategies of subversion and appropriation'. Her counter discursive strategies of resistance are shaped up in various ways by a feminist consciousness that attempts to articulate a distinct African version of identity and preserve cultural distinctiveness.

Keywords: Orientalism, Africaness, discursive resistance, interracial lesbianism, politics of race, the migrant intellectual.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1334780

References:

[1] Marangoly Rosemary George & Helen Scott. "A new tail to an old tale: An interview with Ama Ata Aidoo", in Novel: A Forum of Fiction, Vol. 26, Issue 3, Spring 93, 299, pp. 297-308.
[2] Needham, Anuradha Dingway, Using the Master-s Tools, New York: St. Martin-s, 2000, 77.
[3] Moukhlis, Salah, "A History of Hopes Postponed: Women's Identity and the Postcolonial State in Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey toward Independence. Research in African Literatures, Fall2003, Vol. 34 Issue 3, 66, pp. 66-83.
[4] Marangoly Rosemary George & Helen Scott. "A new tail to an old tale: An interview with Ama Ata Aidoo", in Novel: A Forum of Fiction, Vol. 26, Issue 3, Spring 93, 298, pp. 297-308.
[5] Bekkaoui, Khalid, Sings of Spectacular Resistance: the Spanish Moor and British Orientalism, Casablanca: Najah El Jadida, 1998, p. 29
[6] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. xxvi
[7] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 34
[8] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 34
[9] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 256
[10] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 35
[11] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 36
[12] Pratt, Mary Louise, et al. "Edward Said-s Culture and Imperialism: a symposium", in Social Text, No. 40, Autumn 1994, 3, 1-24
[13] Robins Bruce, "Secularism, Elitism, Progress, and Other Transgressions: On Edward Said-s- Voyage In", in Social Text, No. 40, 1994, 30, 25-37
[14] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 295
[15] Robins Bruce, "Secularism, Elitism, Progress, and Other Transgressions: On Edward Said-s- Voyage In", in Social Text, No. 40, 1994, 32, 25-37
[16] Robins Bruce, "Secularism, Elitism, Progress, and Other Transgressions: On Edward Said-s- Voyage In", in Social Text, No. 40, 1994, 34, 25-37
[17] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 260
[18] Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994, p. 260
[19] Codell Julie F. & Dianne Sachko Macleod (eds), Orientalism Transposed : the impact of the colonies on British culture, Aschgate, 1989, 3
[20] Samantrai, Ranu, "Caught at the Confluence of History: Ama Aidoo-s necessary nationalism", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 26, Issue 2, Summer 95, 143, pp. 140-157.
[21] Samantrai, Ranu, "Caught at the Confluence of History: Ama Aidoo-s necessary nationalism", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 26, Issue 2, Summer 95, 143, pp. 140-157.
[22] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 121
[23] Spurr, David, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration, Duke University Press, 1993, 14
[24] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 19
[25] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 19
[26] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 28
[27] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 52
[28] Hildegard, Hoeller, "Ama Ata Aidoo-s Heart of Darkness", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 35, Issue 1, Spring 2004, 137, pp. 130-147.
[29] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 40
[30] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 40
[31] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 41
[32] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 61
[33] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 75
[34] Rath, Sura P. "Post/Past-ÔÇÿOrientalism: Orientalism and its dis/reorientation," in Comparative American Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 3, 2004, 352, pp. 342-359
[35] Young, Robert. White mythologies: Writing History and the West, London: Routledge, 1990, 143
[36] Bekkaoui, Khalid, Sings of Spectacular Resistance: the Spanish Moor and British Orientalism, Casablanca: Najah El Jadida, 1998, p. 59
[37] Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994, 66
[38] Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994, 86
[39] Lazarus, Neil, "Great Expectations and after: The Politics of Postcolonialism in African Fiction" in Social Text, No. 13/14, Winter- Spring, 1986, 59, pp. 49-63
[40] Ohaeto, Ezenwa, "Emerging Perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 34, Issue 3, Fall 2003, 158, pp. 184-187
[41] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 3-4
[42] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 6
[43] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 6
[44] Said, Edward, Representations of the Intellectual, New York: Vintage Books, 1996, 35
[45] Seth, Sanjay et al. "Postcolonial Studies, a beginning", in Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, April 98, 8, pp. 7-11.
[46] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 87-88
[47] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 91
[48] Lazarus, Neil, "Great Expectations and after: The Politics of Postcolonialism in African Fiction" in Social Text, No. 13/14, Winter- Spring, 1986, 55, pp. 49-63
[49] Samantrai, Ranu, "Caught at the Confluence of History: Ama Aidoo-s necessary nationalism", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 26, Issue 2, Summer 95, 141, pp. 140-157.
[50] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 12
[51] Aidoo, Ama Ata., Our Sister Killjoy, New York: Longman, 1977, 12
[52] Haiping, Yan. "Staging Modern Vagrancy: Female Figures of Bordercrossing in Ama Ata Aidoo and Caryl Churchill", in Theatre Journal, Vol. 54, Issue 2, May 2002, 260, pp. 245-262.
[53] Samantrai, Ranu, "Caught at the Confluence of History: Ama Aidoo-s necessary nationalism", in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 26, Issue 2, Summer 95, 142, pp. 140-157.
[54] Said, Edward. Orientalism, London : Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, 109