THE AMBIGUITY OF IDENTITY AND THE AMBIGUITY OF FORMATION IN AMBIGUOUS ADVENTURE BY CHEIKH HAMIDOU KANE AS A POSTCOLONIAL BILDUNGSROMAN
THE AMBIGUITY OF IDENTITY AND THE AMBIGUITY OF FORMATION IN AMBIGUOUS ADVENTURE BY CHEIKH HAMIDOU KANE AS A POSTCOLONIAL BILDUNGSROMAN

Summary/Abstract: One of the most important literary outcomes of the postmodern period, the postcolonial novel reifies many of its principles and views, such as the idea of the fall of contemporary culture and the doubts concerning cultural advancement; the revaluation of values; the relativity of meaning; the crisis of representation; the lack of originality; intertextuality; the individual as subjected to discourses, power, desire; various binary oppositions, including West and East, center and margin, self and other; rejection or deconstruction of dominant, Western attitudes; and others. The literary pattern of the Bildungsroman or novel of formation is adopted by the postcolonial writers particularly from Africa and other colonized countries to deal with the problems of the subjugated peoples and their transformation into hybrid identities. The concern of the postcolonial Bildungsroman emerges as the formation of the main character in a colonial environment, who faces the difficulties and crisis caused by his alienation from his native identity and culture, while also physically growing up. Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s novel Ambiguous Adventure reflects and follows the main principles of the postcolonial Bildungsroman and our aim is to identify and analyse these principles in relation to the formation process of the protagonist Samba Diallo in an environment of cultural ambiguity and colonial system, in which he is transformed into a hybrid individual and experiences an identity crisis.

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