Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Repetition, Resistance, and Renewal: Postmodern and Postcolonial Narrative Strategies in Selected Francophone African Novels

Ndomaina, Aiah K.

Abstract Details

1998, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, French and Italian.
Postmodernism and postcolonialism are both offsprings of modernity. To be postmodern does not mean to totally obliterate modernity.. In postmodernity, however, the illusions of progress, order, universalism, hegemony, are dissipated. Reason, the very foundation on which modernity was built, and logocentrism, are challenged. Their master-narrative stature is subverted. Emphasis is now on "petits recits," plural voices are listened to. All societies are experiencing the plurality of voices and cultures, and most are expressing them in their cultural productions, such as novels. One cannot assign dates to the paradigm shift that has accompanied this multiplicity of voices, as it is an ongoing process. It was, however, the publication of two controversial novels in 1968, Ahmadou Kourouma's Les Soleils des independances, and Yambo Ouologuem's Les Devoirs de violence, that made critics recognize and pay more attention to the changes in Francophone African novels. The critical perspective that these two novels inaugurated has been enriched and expanded by other novelists all across the African continent. Writers still remain committed to socio¬-political and cultural issues, but they now pay less attention to confronting the Western Other. If they do at all, it is not to replace the Other's discourse with some liberating discourse. They do so in order to put their own discourse to a test, and thus, to find out that there is no such thing as the true voice or discourse. Kourouma, Ouologuem, and Sony Labou Tansi forcefully send this message in the domains of history, power, and language. They criticize the discourse of the Other, but they also cast a critical eye on their different societies. Mariama Ba's concerns for women at first sight only rehash the traditional voices heard in women's songs as they sing while carrying out their daily work on farms. What Ba does, however, is go beyond those complaints and reassure women that despite conventional wisdom, they can develop on their own terms, if they are willing to assert their individual identities.
Karlis Racevskis (Advisor)
John Conteh-Morgan (Committee Member)
Marie-Paule Ha (Committee Member)
261 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ndomaina, A. K. (1998). Repetition, Resistance, and Renewal: Postmodern and Postcolonial Narrative Strategies in Selected Francophone African Novels [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392392192

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ndomaina, Aiah. Repetition, Resistance, and Renewal: Postmodern and Postcolonial Narrative Strategies in Selected Francophone African Novels . 1998. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392392192.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ndomaina, Aiah. "Repetition, Resistance, and Renewal: Postmodern and Postcolonial Narrative Strategies in Selected Francophone African Novels ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392392192

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)