Both Ousmane's Xala and Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy deal with the internal oppression of the main characters. They are dealing with what their culture teaches them in contrasts to what society shoves down their throat. El Hadji, the main character in Xala, fully embodies the new colonialist lifestyle while trying to hold onto some of his culture. This ends up leading to his demise. Sissie, the main character in Our Sister Killjoy, undergoes this constant struggle of whether or not she should return home. The struggles come out in the authors' depictions of the characters and their situations.
While El Hadji is climbing the Europeanized social status ladder, he is stepping on the men of his own culture. The beggars he sees in the streets and ignores are the very men in which he is taking money from by adopting this lifestyle. The society had been going through a transition away from tradition; this was not something that happened over night. El Hadji had been working all his life......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 547
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |