Armah’s The beautyful ones are not yet born: A Sartrean- Fanonian reading
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Date
2023
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Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi –Ouzou
Abstract
This master’s dissertation has probed into the presence of existentialism in Armah’s The beautyful ones are not yet born through a Sartrean Fanonian reading. It takes its bearing from Sartre’s philosophical works, including Nausea (1938), Being and Nothingness (1943), and No Exit (1944), as well as Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952), and The Wretched of the Earth (1961). The study has investigated the extent to which existentialist and revolutionary ideas contribute to our understanding of the novel’s central themes of existentialism, freedom, and authenticity. By connecting Sartrean concepts such as “The Look”, “Bad Faith”, “Nausea”, “Existence vs. Essence”, and “Viscosity” to Fanon’s revolutionary ideologies, this study has emphasized how Armah utilized Sartre’s philosophy to delve into Fanon’s Africanized existentialism, allowing a more comprehensive examination of the complexities of postcolonial Ghanaian society. The findings of this study shed light into how existentialist ideas are instrumental in portraying themes of alienation, existential angst, internal conflicts, and the tension between personal aspirations and oppressive societal realities in postcolonial Ghana. The quest for authenticity and identity is examined through characters such as the nameless protagonist who challenges societal expectations, or Koomson and Oyo who cowardly choose to denounce their agency in the face of social and political constraints. Armah’s stylization of Fanon while using Sartrean existentialist themes, serve as a philosophical critique of postcolonial Ghana’s sociopolitical systems, and its existing order.
Description
60p. ; 30cm. (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
Africanized existentialism, authenticity, existentialism, Fanon, freedom, Sartre
Citation
Literature and Civilization