This is based on the Aristotelian notion of mimesis as production, representation and creation of the existent as well as the probable. That one of the approaches to literature involves viewing it as a member of a specific class which can be engaged in a comparative study is also certain. That postcolonial literary theory has been much employed in the service of literary criticism is a given.

Consequently, this article will focus on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s presentation of the subject in her novel, Americanah, using the postcolonial approach.

Hence, the explication of this phenomenon will go a long way in demonstrating the forms of self-expression that the Black woman chooses and which ultimately make up her identity. This adoption of imperial notions of beauty is rooted in self-loathing, argued by postcolonial thinkers to arise from the psychological effects of colonization. It is presented as it applies to the Black woman in aspects such as hair, skin color, and physique. The phenomenon of “imperial aesthetics” (basically beauty in the Western sense) is the foremost of these issues and the core of this article. Several writers have sought to capture the uniqueness of the postcolonial female in contemporary times, bringing to the fore issues that plague her. The woman as a postcolonial subject seems to deal with more of these incongruities in almost every sphere as she negotiates life in the postcolony and other societies that facilitated colonization and still does in some. These contradictions result from a torsion of Western and indigenous values and culture in the individual. The postcolonial subject is one whose life is rife with contradictions.

Gyasi transcendent kingdom