EXPLORING MADNESS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF "XALA" BY OUSMANE SEMBÉNE AND "FRAGMENTS" BY AYI KWEI ARMAH

Abstract

Madness in Ousmane Sembéne’s Xala and Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragment is examined and analyzed through desperations and roles of the minds of characters in these books. A critical attention was been paid to how the human mind is fractured as we walk to and fro even without signs of madness yet within, there is a part of us that exhibit an amount of psychological defect. The paper brings to light Sigmond Freud’s psycho analytic theory on concepts of trauma of colonial madness and mental slavery and psychological implications of some themes in the various books and among us Africans. This paper employed the mental states of El-Hadji’s frustration in Xala and Onipa Baako’s rejection in fragment. Also, polygamy in Africa and its complexities in individual characters cognitive domain was looked at. The paper ends by examining the fact that mental disorder in a man starts from birth, when man has to think by agreeing or disagreeing with elements of creation as a child till, he grows. Either by accepting who he is as a ‘black’ or a ‘white’. But one thing remains a fact…All are intelligent and that all are MAD.

Keywords: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Neourosis, Trauma, Inferiority Complex