Character Formation in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’spurple Hibiscus and Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow
Character Formation in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’spurple Hibiscus and Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow.
ABSTRACT
This work analyses two novels by contemporary Nigerian female writers – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow as a representative of Bildungsroman which traces the growth and developmental trajectories of the principal characters from childhood to maturation.
The study explores the various ways in which the writers re-adopt the sub-genre as a vehicle by means of which the characters of our contemporary Nigerian youths are formed.
It acknowledges the existing German model and precursor, Goethe’s Whilhelm Meister Apprenticeship up to British Bildungsroman as well as African female Bildungsroman, which has become very popular among contemporary female writers.
Chapter one serves as the general introduction. It explains the meaning and the processes of character formation, it equally shows the plot pattern of the genre, the interrelatedness of psychology of personality formation with Bildungsroman, and the feministic trends in the novel of formation with emphasis on female Kunsterroman.
Chapter two is the review of the available literature on Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus as well as points of view of various critics on Agary’s Yellow-Yellow. This chapter points that the existing research work by various critics has not been able to substantiate the key elements responsible for change and transformation in the characters.
The study therefore seeks to explore such factors that influence formation of characters in the focal texts. Chapter three forms the theoretical framework and methodology.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, some of the innovative and formative trends that dominate the 21st century African literaturefocus extensively on character formation.
In literary parlance, a novel of formation also called Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary sub-genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to maturation, andin which character change/transformation is thus extremely important.
The emerging development covers the creative hiatus of colonial and postcolonial experiences that previously dominate African literary canon. Hence, contemporary writers have been ingeniously and eruditely locating the coming –of-ageethos to emphasize that growth and development are universal human phenomena.
Talking about the resurgence of growing-up motif in contemporary Africa, especially Nigeria, Maxwell Okolieopines that: This privilege phase of growing up is often used as intimate, passion-packed subject matter in fiction.
To render poetically, its complex vision was once the yearning of some African novelists who consider it essentially not only to the understanding of African personality… but also to the remaking of Africa (141).
By implication, the writers are clearin their ingenuity to locate the process of human growth and development as germane to understanding human personality. More writers are subscribing to this ethos, as will be featuring in the focal texts:Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adiche and Agary Kaine’s Yellow –Yellow.
REFERENCES
Abrams, M.H. A. Glossary of literary Terms, Eight Edition, Boston: Thomas Wadson, 2005 Print.
Abel, Elizabeth, Hirsch, Marianne and Langland Elizabeth, Eds. The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1983.Print.
Adeeko, Adeleke “Power shift: American in the New Nigerian Imagination.” The Global South.No. 2 Web. 20 September 2011.
Adichie, Chimamanda. Purple Hibiscus. Lagos: Farafina, 2003, print.
Agary, Kaine. Yellow-Yellow. Lagos: Dtalkshop, 2006. Print
Aristotle “On the Art of poetry” Classical Literary Criticism. Trans T.S. Dorsch Harmond Sworth: Penguin 1965. Print.
CSN Team.
