Abstract
In White is for Witching (2009), Helen Oyeyemi defamiliarizes traditional narratives, subverts the classical doctrines and inserts recent issues. Although her novels are mostly read within the scope of gothic literature, she introduces ethnic mythology and folklore that provide myriad perspectives. As well as incorporating the traditional gothic features, Oyeyemi draws from the cultural motifs of her Nigerian roots to highlight the recurring patterns of immigration, coexistence, and integration in English history. Using the vocabulary and the pattern of gothic narration, the novel constructs a postcolonial story to question the xenophobic tendencies of the English nation as a legacy of the colonial era that endures today through immigration policies. Therefore, in this article, I read the novel as a postcolonial gothic criticising the xenophobic concerns of pure white Englishness against racial others and immigrants labelled as invaders of English identity through the elements of cultural gothic.
Publisher
Celal Bayar University Journal of Social Sciences
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Environmental Science
Reference20 articles.
1. Arata, S. D. (1990). The Occidental tourist: Dracula and the anxiety of reverse colonization. Victorian Studies 33(4), 621-45.
2. Brantlinger, P. (2006). Imperial Gothic. A. Powell and A. Smith (Eds.), Teaching the Gothic (p. 153-167). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Botting, F. (1996). Gothic. London: Routledge.
4. Buckley, C. and Ilott, S. (2017). Introduction. C. Buckley and S. Ilott (Eds.), Telling it slant : critical approaches to Helen Oyeyemi (p. 1-22). Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
5. Burton, K. (2017). ‘Why do people go to these places, these places that are not for them?’: (De)constructing Borders in White Is for Witching and The Opposite House. B. Chloé and S. Ilott (Eds.), Telling it slant : critical approaches to Helen Oyeyemi (p. 74-92). Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.