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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Reimagining African Authenticity Through Adichie's Imitation Motif, Ivette Rodriguez
Reimagining African Authenticity Through Adichie's Imitation Motif, Ivette Rodriguez
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In An Image of Africa, Chinua Achebe indicts Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for exemplifying the kind of purist rhetoric that has long benefited Western ontology while propagating reductive renderings of African experience. Edward Said refers to this dynamic as the way in which societies define themselves contextually against an imagined Other. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s fiction exposes how, by occupying cultural dominance, Western, white male values are normalized as universal. Nevertheless, these values are de-naturalized by their inconsistencies in the lived experiences of Adichie’s black, African women. Women who are at once aware of and participant in, the pretentions that underlie …
Border Crossings And Transnational Movements In Sandra Cisneros’ Spatial Narratives Offer Alternatives To Dominant Discourse, Raquel D. Vallecillo
Border Crossings And Transnational Movements In Sandra Cisneros’ Spatial Narratives Offer Alternatives To Dominant Discourse, Raquel D. Vallecillo
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My study aims to reveal how ideologies, the way we perceive our world, what we believe, and our value judgments inextricably linked to a dominant discourse, have real and material consequences. In addition to explicating how these ideologies stem from a Western philosophical tradition, this thesis examines this thought-system alongside selections from Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and Caramelo or Puro Cuento. My project reveals how Cisneros’ spatial narratives challenge ideologies concerning the border separating the United States and Mexico, which proves significant as the project of decolonization and understanding of identity formation is fundamentally tied to these geographical …