KAINE AGARY’S YELLOW-YELLOW: THE FEMINIST BILDUNGSROMAN

Abstract

This paper examines how Kaine Agary adopts the German Bildungsroman form to question the socio-political challenges of her time. It argues that social conditions provoke a reworking of the genres convention to account for peculiar experiences. A close examination of the protagonist’s process of maturation across geographical and social boarders’ emphasises the flexibility of the Bildungsroman. Exploring the female protagonist/novel allows the researcher to reveal the extent to which the selected text represents or reverses certain features of the Bildungsroman. The paper adopts Karen Horney’s psychoanalytic social theory which is based on the assumption that apart from early childhood experiences, social and cultural conditions influence personality development. It argues for a close reading and analysis of Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow as an example of contemporary feminist Bildungsroman. The findings above imply that the Bildungsroman has been re-constructed within third generation Nigerian context. However, there are other variations in the Nigerian Bildungsroman such as ethnic, dual and LGBTQ variations that need further academic exploration.