The Grammar of the Mid-Century Diasporic Afro-Entwicklungsroman: Context, Purpose and Form of Discourse

Abstract

This article is a study of the characteristic traits of what we term the mid-century diasporic Afro-Entwicklungsroman, a new version of bildungsroman developed in the African Diaspora in the mid-twentieth century. It results from the realization of the differences in terms of form between the traditional European Bildungsroman’s model and the version popularized by writers of the African diaspora from the middle to the end of the twentieth century. It mainly argues that these differences stem from the context and the function of the discourses disseminated in them. It demonstrates that although both the European and diasporic versions are pedagogical in impulse, they bear different forms because the Afro-Entwicklunsgromane, unlike the European bildungsroman which depicts more stages and celebrates the protagonist’s entrance into the world as a mature being, focuses exclusively on the challenges faced during the protagonist’s stage of growth as a means of awakening, sensitizing, and educating the colonized subjects. In other words, this article demonstrates that the grammar of the novel of development is determined by the context and the function of the discourse.

Keywords

• Bildungsroman
• Entwicklungsroman
• Novel Of Development
• Postcolonialism
• African Diaspora