Beyond postcolonial Gothic in African literature

Abstract

The dominant way that Gothic is currently conceptualized in African literature is through postcolonial theory, examining repressed colonial history and horror. While there is nothing wrong with this framework, what this dominant approach does is flatten out and elide other complex ways of reading through what these texts have constructed as fearful and monstrous. This essay relies on the framework of Rebecca Duncan, who suggests a way of conceptualizing Afro-gothic that does not rely on the postcolonial theory paradigm. Following Abiola Irele, Duncan proposes Afro-gothic to be dependent on the influence of African orality where the “supernatural figures associated with particular cosmologies or mythologies … are presented in gothic terms” in the literary texts (Duncan 158). Using two canonical texts and a recent text based on Yoruba and Igbo oralities, the supernatural substrate, ogbanje/abiku from Igbo/Yoruba cosmologies within these texts will be excavated to reveal the Gothic dimensions that have previously been overlooked. I will engage in this analysis by closely reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the poem “Abiku” by JP Clark, and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi.

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