Shaping identity under colonial systems a comparison of African and Canadian-Métis texts by Chinua Achebe, Maria Campbell, James Ngugi, and Beatrice Culleton

Abstract

In the present thesis I will analyse the phenomenon of the shaping of identity in African and Canadian postcolonial texts. In the world of the texts, this phenomenon occurs when colonial subjects are caught between tradition and modernity. The African texts that I will discuss are Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and James Ngugi's The River Between, which I will compare to the Canadian Métis texts, Maria Campbell's Halfbreed and Beatrice Culleton's In Search of April Raintree. The primary goal of this thesis will be to compare these different texts in order to find the different methods chosen by each author in his or her representation of the space in which the colonial subject evolves and his or her reaction to the changes brought by colonisation. The methodology followed throughout the thesis will consist of a comparative and postcolonial analysis and historical contextualisation."--Résumé abrégé par UMI.