Xala Vs Killjoy
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Both Ousmanes Xala and Aidoos Our Sister Killjoy deal with the internal oppression of the main characters. They are dealing with what their culture teaches them in contrasts to what society shoves down their throat. El Hadji, the main character in Xala, fully embodies the new colonialist lifestyle while trying to hold onto some of his culture. This ends up leading to his demise. Sissie, the main character in Our Sister Killjoy, undergoes this constant struggle of whether or not she should return home. The struggles come out in the authors depictions of the characters and their situations.
While El Hadji is climbing the Europeanized social status ladder, he is stepping on the men of his own culture. The beggars he sees in the streets and ignores are the very men in which he is taking money from by adopting this lifestyle. The society had been going through a transition away from tradition; this was not something that happened over night. El Hadji had been working all his life towards approval by his neo-colonized peers, and this leads to his Xala, and eventually his demise. Even at the end of the novel, the beggars who are there to help him are shunned away. “Outside the forces of order raised their weapons into the firing position,” getting ready to take care of the beggars who were disturbing a man who was once seen as civilized (Ousmane, 103). Even at the end of the novel, El Hadji continues his struggle of keeping his own culture down in order to gain respect. Sissies struggle is fairly different from El Hadjis.
In Our Sister Killjoy, Sissie is seen in situations where she is discovering who she is, and who people think she may be because of her background. When she is seen as being “black” for the first time while shes in Germany, it is interesting to see her portrayal of “pickled pig part” colored people (Aidoo, 12). Sissie realizes that her thoughts are not unlike what the