BORDER CROSSING, GENDER CONSCIOUSNESS AND EMANCIPATION IN POSTCOLONIAL NARRATIVES OF ISIDORE OKPEWHO’S CALL ME BY MY RIGHTFUL NAME, THE VICTIM AND BUCHI EMECHETA’S SECOND CLASS CITIZEN, KEHINDE

Abstract

ABSTRACT : This article discusses the foundational factors for which the African postcolonial subject indulges in transnational or external displacement, verifying whether the purpose for their displacement has been fulfilled. The conditions of the displaced postcolonial subjects in their transnational space and their responses to the realities of this space are zoomed in by a postcolonial reading of Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me By My Rightful Name and The Victims and Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde and Second-Class Citizen. One of the major issues handled by both writers is the question of gender consciousness and emancipation. They vividly bring to the lamb light some of the difficulties female migrants encounter out of their homeland. Though this article is linked to gender studies, which is not a field of knowledge per se, it serves as a mode of interpretation, shining light on the construction of identity, the relationship between the individual and society, and the individual and culture, which constitute some of the major elements featuring in the selected novels. Gender therefore can be characterized by political emancipation which is strongly connected with the condition of women and other subaltern subjects. Thus, the difference between the sexes is socially and historically constructed as disparity in workplace, and in the intellectual and symbolic sphere. Evidence of such an imbalance is imbedded in the gender discrimination persistently fought against by feminist movements, designed to challenge male supremacy. The development of a new paradigm has therefore been transformed into an essential tool for an analysis of inequalities that focuses on the socially constructed aspects of sexual differences and the non-biological factors contributing to gender disparity. Once female characters cross the oceans, either in search of greener pastures or due to socio-political factors such as slavery or upheavals, they are caught up in traumatic situations within which they are either obliged to negotiate space for themselves or return simply home. Those that accept the lifestyle of the host country definitely become hybrids. Thus, gender consciousness and emancipation, as discussed in this article, will help to demonstrate how female characters create space in their new found homes by becoming hybrids-a process which is vital in identity construction. The result is a rise in the number of foreign nationals in different countries and the subsequent mixing of cultures. Thus, cultural expression can be an appropriate contribution which not only facilitates the integration of foreign nationals, but also sows the seeds of challenge to the general conception of the established world order in the individual spheres where the blacks, especially the female folks, are discriminated against. Okpewho and Emecheta in their social structures try to explore the impacts on the self and the internal dynamics of self-processes as these impact on the social behaviour of their female characters. It can therefore be affirmed that, Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me By My Rightful Name, The Victim and Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde and Second Class Citizen are novels in which the differences between male and female immigrants in Britain and those Black Americans who travel back to Nigeria in search of their identity are observed. Their varied worldviews turns to provoke questions such as: what are the experiences of Okpewho and Emecheta’s female characters in the process of border crossing? What creates the socio-political, economic, and cultural intricacies accompanying the postcolonial immigrants in their host countries? How are their reactions to the hosts’ comportment? and lastly, what strategies do the immigrants used to integrate their new found lands? These research problems not only search on their daily interactions with the different people and structures, but in the transnational political space. Employing the theoretical paradigm of postcolonial theory, this article hypotheses that Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name and The Victims, and Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde and Second Class Citizen are postcolonial narratives that discuss the complexities of transnational displacements and migrations on the existential conditions of the postcolonial subject, and that, Okpewho and Emecheta do not consider transcontinental movement of postcolonial African subjects a really helpful alleviation of their problems. Rather, the two focal authors see the movement of these postcolonial African subjects from the periphery to the metropolitan centre as creating new space for the migrants, and the comparative success of female immigrants in achieving cultural adaptation. KEYWORDS: Gender consciousness and Emancipation