Open AccessA Tussle for Decolonization of the Mind: Representation of the Whiteman in “A Grain of Wheat”
Author(s) -
Khaleel Bakheet Kh. Ismail,
Yasir Arafat Mahfouz
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of education and culture studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2573-041X
pISSN - 2573-0401
DOI - 10.22158/jecs.v2n3p105
Subject(s) - postcolonialism (international relations) , context (archaeology) , narrative , representation (politics) , decolonization , orientalism , sociology , literature , philosophy , aesthetics , history , art , gender studies , political science , law , archaeology , politics
The main aim of this paper is to critically examine the representation of the Whiteman (the colonizer) in the African prose narrative context and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “A Grain of Wheat” specifically. The thrust has emerged from the main concepts of the binary opposites postulated by the critic Franz Fanon regarding the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Hence, the postcolonial theory is adopted as a literary analytical theoretical framework in this paper, for it works as a boundary line that explicates such texts. Via a close analysis of the selected text based on the tenants of postcolonialism, orientalism, Occidentalism its concluded that A Grain of Wheat is one of the literary texts that represents African elites’ tussle for decolonizing the mind.