Writing Protest: A Comparative Analysis Of Chika Unigew’S On Sister Street And Night Dancer
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Writing Protest: A Comparative Analysis Of Chika Unigew’S On Sister Street And Night Dancer
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Chika Unigwe, a Nigerian-Belgian writer, wrote the satirical, which was inspired by Kenyan novelist Binyavanga Wainaina’s work “How to Write about Africa” and is also available digitally as “How to be an African,” but altered. Unigwe says in her piece that before going to Europe, she had no notion what it meant to be black, implying that she did not see race as a defining social identity in Nigeria.
She goes on to describe, with considerable irony, what she’s learnt about blackness while living in Europe. “It has been revealed in the literature that being black implies that the person is seen as a charity effort. She had to be grateful for the opportunity to be in Europe.”
These teachings include looking genuinely African, being prepared for police control, and being able to dance. Unigwe’s literature, which asserts that blackness has no connotation on its own but is provided meaning from the outside, serves as a reminder of the social construction of blackness.
However, the African sex workers in On Black Sisters’ Street become black in Belgium, and they negotiate a sense of self in the context of the already established social order.
Using BecomingBlack in Seven Lessons as an interpretive lens, author Adesokan argues that their self-representations reveal the mediation of dominant historical images and Western symbolic meanings, as well as their attempts to wrest control of the construction of their bodies from dominant culture’s distorted visions.
Although Unigwe’s situation as a black middle-class author in the Flemish literary field cannot be conflated with that of the four Nigerian women working in the sex industry described in the book, parallels can be drawn between them, as Adesokan wishes to argue, in the ways in which their agency is established in the performance of certain cultural configurations that have seized hegemonic hold.
On Black Sisters Street is the heartbreaking story of four very different women who leave their African birthplace for the riches of Europe—and are forced together by poor luck and enormous hopes into a sisterhood that will change their lives (Adesokan, 2012).
On the other side, ‘Night Dancer’ is set in Nigeria and follows the narrative of Mma, a young girl who has had a difficult existence. When her mother Ezi dies unexpectedly, Mma is confronted with a past she had no idea about.
She discovers that her mother abandoned her father after he impregnated their servant girl. Ezi subsequently went to her native city of Enugu and began working as a prostitute, bringing humiliation to the family and jeopardising Mma’s future.
Mma wishes to re-establish familial ties following her mother’s death. When she meets her father, he maintains that Evi is to blame, not him (Nwakanma, 2015).
Both Night Dance and On Black Sister’s Street by Chika Unigwe are satirical depictions of African drama. Satire is a type of literature, as well as graphic and performing arts, that ridicules vices, follies, abuses, and falsities, ideally with the purpose of embarrassing individuals and society as a whole. Even while satire is frequently humorous, a more significant goal is sometimes social corrective or constructive criticism utilising the intellect as a weapon.
According to Abramas, satire dispels the illusions that man requires to live. Because he is constantly dealing with the present, he risks having a brief life. It is claimed that satire provides neither the escape of comedy nor the purgation of tragedy. It is simply a combination of unresolved irritating pleasure (Abramas, 2008).
Satire is a creative genre that uses irony and sarcasm to criticise specific cultural or other actions. This style of critique can be amusing, although entertainment and humour are not always the primary goals; humour is frequently employed to compensate for the harshness of the criticism itself.
Satire is successful in a society that is aware of acceptable moral and behavioural standards. To attain this purpose, satirists must use specific values to show a dramatic decline in behaviour or aberration.
This study is centred on the contrast between traditional and modern living in contemporary Nigeria. Chika Unigwe illustrates the predicament that many individuals in modern Africa face. Her representation is effective, executed with sensitivity and a strong eye for the complexities of African society.
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