Keywords
French colonial, Africa, racial segregation, race, Africans, French language, culture, religion, policies, Ferdinand Oyono, embodies, undecidability, colonial servant, servant, boy, locus, denaturalization of the identities, identity, institutionalized, denied, Manichaean colonial world, colonial, colonialism, Manichaean
Abstract
The French colonial enterprise in Africa enforced racial segregation, yet encouraged Africans to assimilate the French language, culture, and religion. The essay questions these contradictory policies through readings of Ferdinand Oyono's novels. It argues that a figure that embodies undecidability—the colonial servant known as the "boy"—is the locus of the denaturalization of the identities that were simultaneously institutionalized and denied by the Manichaean colonial world.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Menke, Anne M.
(1991)
"`Boy!': The Hinge of Colonial Double Talk,"
Studies in 20th Century Literature:
Vol. 15:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1262
Included in
French and Francophone Literature Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
