An Analysis Of Black Women’s Identity In Americanah From The Perspective Of Post-colonial Feminism

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian female writer.Her representative work Americanah was published in 2013,then won the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award.This novel mainly describes the experiences of the Nigerian when they are living in foreign countries.It reflects Adichie’s profound reflection on the themes of race,gender and identity in current world as a black female writer living in the United States.Hence this work deserves to be dig and researched more deeply.This paper takes Americanah as the object of study,with the post-colonial feminist theory as the reference,goes deep into the details and explores the identity issues of black women.It finds that black women,under the dual oppression of racial discrimination and gender discrimination,have fallen into the identity dilemma.At the same time,through text analysis,it finds that black women can get rid of identity dilemma and reshape themselves by actively defending local culture,arousing self-consciousness and making alliance with men,which has a great significance for encouraging marginal people to realize their identity reconstruction,and is also conducive to a more comprehensive appreciation of the literary and social value of the novel.This paper is divided into five parts.The first part is the introduction,which mainly introduces the author Adichie and the content of Americanah,and summarizes the previous research of this work.The second part is the theoretical explanation,which introduces the background and main characteristics of the post-colonial feminism.The third part analyzes the text,explores the specific manifestations of female identity loss,and finds the reasons of it.Under the erosion of racial discrimination and the mainstream white culture in the United States,the black women in the white society became the victims of racism and myrmidons of white culture.At the same time,under the long-term control and education of patriarchy,black women lost their autonomy,imprisoned in the stereotype given by the society,and became dolls who were at the mercy of men.The fourth part summarizes the strategies of resistance taken by the female characters in order to break the identity dilemma.On the one hand,they actively defend the original black culture,and actively resist the persecution of racism.On the other hand,they actively seek female subjectivity,and fight with men.This thesis takes black female characters such as Ifemelu and Aunty Uju as examples to elaborate.The last part is the conclusion.Through the analysis of Americanah from the perspective of post-colonial feminism,this paper shows that black women are trying to reconstruct their identity under the double oppression of race and gender.It shows Adichie’s encouragement to black women’s active struggle.