Being and Nothingness: Trauma, loss and alienation in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not
| dc.contributor.author | Chigwedere, Yuleth | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-11-15T07:44:44Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-11-15T07:44:44Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In this article, I reveal how Dangarembga’s narrative echoes Fanon’s “black skin, white masks” psy-chology. The protagonist’s internalisation of a Eurocentric view of her race and culture culminates in a profound belief in her own inferiority and that of her people. I use Laing and Fanon’s psychoanalytic theories to portray the protagonist’s struggle with her sense of identity and ontological security. I argue that the subsequent fractured sense of self she experiences affects her to such an extent that shame, guilt and self-negation dominate her mental make-up. What emerges is that the destabilising effect of the trauma of blackness results in a nullification of subjectivity - a total sense of not-being - that causes the protagonist to plummet into the depths of depression. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Chigwedere, Y. (2016). Being and Nothingness: Trauma, loss and alienation in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not. Journal for Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(2), 169-183. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2026-7215 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11070/1895 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | University of Namibia | en_US |
| dc.subject | Trauma | en_US |
| dc.subject | Alienation | en_US |
| dc.title | Being and Nothingness: Trauma, loss and alienation in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |