Description
The paper explores different meanings of post-colonial independence by looking at two novels, The barracks by John McGahern (1963) and The beautyful ones are not yet born by Ayi Kwei Amah (1965), set in Ireland and Ghana respectively. In both novels, the male protagonist works for the state which he detests, comparing its muddle and murk with the clearer cut purpose of anti-colonial struggle. Both novels play with Plato’s allegory of the cave to explain the frustrations of being denied access to enlightenment and freedom that the men had imagined would come with independence.
The paper argues however, that a more ambiguous picture of independence emerges within the families of the novels. Taking the family as an analogy of the post-colonial state – inherited, orphaned and damaged – it explores feelings of guilt, alienation and impotence, as well as love, as reflections on a more ambiguous independence. It draws on the UK-based psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s theory of the ‘depressive position’ to make conclusions about the limits and possibilities of independence in two post-colonial states as they seek to establish themselves.
