Perceptions of Some Africans about Post-Colonialism as Depicted in Jomo Kenyatta’s “The Gentlemen of the Jungle”

Abstract

Every human being, in addition to having his or her own personal identity, has a sense of who he or she is, in relation to the larger society. It seems that after independence is achieved by African states, one main question arises: What is the new society, culture, and identity? Africans are faced with cultural clash owing to the fact that they have been too much exposed to the colonizer's (European's) way of life. The identity of most Africans is gradually eroded as there is a proliferation of Westernization. This content analysis design paper, employing Jomo Kenyatta's short story, "The Gentlemen of the Jungle", as the main data, has examined the main theme, post-colonialism, from four sub-perspectives. These perspectives are: alienation and exclusion, retributive justice, the colonizer's language as a tool of dominance, and double standard and abuse of power. The significance of this paper is to facilitate the shaping of new identities in African communities after the obliterating of colonialism and European imperialism. The essay is structured into four main parts: introduction, the method, the themes, and the conclusion.

The Conflict between Traditional and Western Cultures: A Comparative Study of Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ and Ama Ata Aidoo’s ‘Dilemma of a Ghost’

“…Also, whether westernization exists as an influence or not, it should be inculcated into the works of African writers in a way that traditional values are not obscured, and at the same time, westernization is not ignored. Thus, Owusu et al (2019) argue that despite the oppression, racial discrimination, segregation, erosion of identity and culture, misuse of power, and negativities leveled against the West, they left Africa a legacy -formal education, infrastructure, technology, economic development, and erosion of the negative components of the African culture.…”

“…Africans are faced with several cases of cultural clash owing to too much exposure to the European way of life. The identity of most Africans is gradually eroded as there is a proliferation of Westernization (Owusu et al, 2019). On a general premonition, one feels that Soyinka thinks that both sides of conflicting fractions should come together for a possible union of values because they both have their positive as well as negative sides that they can both depend on.…”

“…These European exploiters, dictators, and grabbers used Christianity as a tool to elucidate the apparent incongruities displayed in Africans because of the working-out of wider historical forces. It seems that after African states achieved independence, the big concern of most people had to do with the new society, culture, and identity of Africans (Owusu et al, 2019).…”

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“…Specifically, thematic analysis (conceptual analysis), which is one of the types of content analysis was used. Usually, the goal of thematic analysis is to examine the occurrence of selected terminologies from sampled data (Owusu, et al, 2019).…”

The Use of Referentiality in Examining Selected Stage Directions in Sophocles “Oedipus the King”

“…Consequently, the analysis of the selected text was done by exhuming the hidden meanings or themes in the selected stage directions of the text. The aim of this kind of content analysis (conceptual analysis) is to scrutinize the occurrence of selected terms in the data (Owusu et al, 2019).…”