Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans

Abstract

The first novels published by Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans feature twins of mixedrace parentage-a Nigerian mother and an English father-, growing up in Britain. Eightyear-old Jessamy in Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl is unaware that she was born a twin, but on travelling to Nigeria she encounters a troublesome girl she seems unable to shake off, TillyTilly. Georgia and Bessi in Evans's 26a are identical twins who share all their experiences until a visit to their mother's homeland of Nigeria opens a breach in their perfect union. Both novels were published in 2005 and display a number of commonalities in plot, characterization, locations, and stylistic choices. In them Oyeyemi and Evans explore the Yoruba beliefs surrounding the special nature of twins, half way between the world of humans and gods. If one twin dies, parents commission a carving called "ibeji" to honour the deceased and to provide a location for his/her soul. The specialness attributed to twins by the Yoruba is compounded in both novels by the fact that they are mixed-race and by the diverging locations, cultures, and languages of their parents. Thus, this paper addresses how the two writers deploy Yoruba belief in order to raise questions about the cultural grounding of their characters' identity, and how being twins becomes a metaphor for the "double consciousness" of being black and British.