Exploring Double Colonization in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi and Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The present study puts its emphasis on the cross-cultural study of double colonization in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi and Buchi Emecheta’s the Joys of Motherhood. Double colonization refers to a situation where women face oppression by both patriarchy and colonialism. The experiences of such doubly colonized women appear bitterer than their Western counterparts as they are always being subjugated on the basis of race, culture and gender. A feminist postcolonial perspective of Twilight in Delhi and The Joys of Motherhood, from Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak’s point of view, aims to reveal manifestations of double colonization of Indian and African women in the novels and the oppression these female characters face both as women and as the colonized. Textual analysis of the novels Twilight in Delhi and The Joys of Motherhood further gives the impression that this double colonization of the female characters has shattered the family relationships as the women appear to lose their attraction on account of different psychological problems resulting from their double oppression. Moreover, there appear many points of convergence and divergence during this cross-cultural study of double colonization of Indian and African women.