Studies have offered insights into how autobiography recounts and interprets the writer's past, relying heavily on what the writer has become at the time of writing and invariably, preserving the writer's personality. The current avalanche of autobiographical writings and their attendant studies indicate without a doubt the keen interest in issues about identity and self in purging writers of their mental, emotional and psychological anguish. The study employs close reading to the analysis of the two texts while deliberating on the central thematic ideas. Thus, through textual analysis, a methodical perusal of the two texts provides an opportunity to investigate how Ashun and Cooper chronicle the development of their 'selves' in Tuesday's Child and The House at Sugar Beach respectively. Through reflections on their past experiences, coupled with the historical consciousness they have about their families and communities, they reach a full realization of their selves for a healthy life and well-being. Aspects of their lives that they had initially struggled to come to terms with are embraced as part of their life stories.
Scholars have examined several aspects of the ideological processes the narrations in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe enact. The allegorical mode of representations through which it conveys those processes can be re-read as imperial/colonial discourse. Consistent with theoretical arguments, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart on the other hand, represents the reaction of an African writer to canonical works that present negative stereotypes of Africa and Africans. In light of the foregoing, this study does a comparative textual analysis of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as a good example in the canon of colonial discourse and Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a good example in the canon of counter-discourse of decolonization. Through close reading, the study extends the argument further by investigating the strategies both texts adopt to achieve their aims and the effectiveness thereof. Consequently, the flawed views of the African through imperial/colonial discourse which have shaped the social construction and contemporary representations of the African are corrected. By conducting this study, we largely contribute to the evolving debate on counter discourse to the narratives presented by early European writers.
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