Mimicry and the Performance of State Power in the Nigerian Dictator Novel
Keywords:
Mimicry, Uncanny, Binary Opposition, SubversiveAbstract
Novels produced in the postcolony have continued to represent the society in which they are produced. Novels of hope that followed political independence are being replaced by those of military/civilian dictatorship which attempt to represent the current situation of the African postcolony vis a vis the relationship between the ruling class and the masses. By adopting a close reading of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel, this paper exposed the features of the autocratic regimes that have subjugated the masses by denying them of their power of agency and reducing them to the condition of prey. By adopting Homi Bhabha’s ideology of mimicry, the researchers attempt to expose the unbalanced relationship between the ruler and the ruled where both are drawn into an uncanny situation which cancels the binary opposition usually found in coloniser/colonised relationships since both classes of people are engaged in a battle of supremacy. According to Bhabha, mimicry of the coloniser by the colonised by ridiculing and undermining the hegemonic power leads to double articulation, a subversive strategy which has brought about unnecessary compromise in the affairs of the postcolonial state.
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