{"id":6282,"date":"2010-03-25T18:19:32","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T18:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=6282"},"modified":"2015-03-08T19:49:52","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T19:49:52","slug":"double-consciousness-in-the-work-of-helen-oyeyemi-and-diana-evans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=6282","title":{"rendered":"Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Women: A Cultural Review<\/a>
\nVolume 20, Issue 3<\/a> (December 2009)
\npages 277-286
\nDOI: 10.1080\/09574040903285735<\/a><\/p>\n

Pilar Cuder-Domnguez<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor
\nUniversity of Huelva, Spain<\/em><\/p>\n

The first novels published by <\/strong>Helen Oyeyemi<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>Diana Evans<\/strong><\/a> feature twins of mixed-race parentage\u2014a Nigerian mother and an English father\u2014growing up in Britain<\/strong>. Eight-year-old Jessamy in Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl<\/em> is unaware that she was born a twin, but on travelling to Nigeria she encounters TillyTilly, a troublesome girl she seems unable to shake off. Georgia and Bessi in Evans’s 26a<\/em> are identical twins who share all their experiences until a visit to their mother’s homeland of Nigeria opens a breach in their perfect union. Both novels were published in 2005 and display certain commonalities of plot, characterisation, location and stylistic choice. Oyeyemi and Evans both explore Yoruba beliefs<\/a> surrounding the special nature of twins\u2014half way between the world of humans and gods. If one twin dies, parents commission a carving called ‘ibeji<\/a>‘ to honour the deceased and to provide a location for their soul. The specialness attributed to twins by the Yoruba is compounded in both novels by the fact that they are mixed-race and by the diverging locations, cultures and languages of their parents.<\/strong> Thus, this article addresses how the two writers deploy Yoruba beliefs in order to raise questions about the cultural grounding of their characters’ identities, and how being twins becomes a metaphor for the ‘double consciousness’ of being black and British.<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Double Consciousness in the Work of Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans Women: A Cultural Review Volume 20, Issue 3 (December 2009) pages 277-286 DOI: 10.1080\/09574040903285735 Pilar Cuder-Domnguez, Associate Professor University of Huelva, Spain The first novels published by Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans feature twins of mixed-race parentage\u2014a Nigerian mother and an English father\u2014growing up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,10,25],"tags":[20761,2632,2633,1691,2631,2630],"class_list":["post-6282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-women","tag-africa","tag-diana-evans","tag-helen-oyeyemi","tag-nigeria","tag-pilar-cuder-domnguez","tag-women-a-cultural-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}