CULTURAL ELEMENTS: APPROPRIATION AND ABROGATION IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH

Abstract

Nigerian society after its independence has been thrown to the trauma of decolonization, affected the entire community. The people started to move abroad because of the crises as imposed by colonialism. The characters living in the west from third world countries at the start are the victim of inferiority complex but later on they adapt with the western society. The people want to migrate to western world, and dreaming of American culture and get a prominent position in the west. This position also brings recognition in the home; therefore, they have to appropriate the western culture. Appropriation primarily deals with the acceptance of the standard language and culture of colonizer but later on it surpassed the concept and goes for acceptance of the master’s culture. Therefore, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013) seems full of the said issues which are analyzed in the current research. After getting prominent position in the story by different characters they saw a false image of American dream that is full of superiority whereas the African were identified as slaves, barbarian and submissive people. Therefore, African abrogate the Western culture in the novel. Abrogation is opposite of appropriation, denotatively deals with the rejection of standard language and culture but goes for few elements of culture rejection. The research is qualitative and the researcher used close textual analysis as research method while Ashcraft et al. Postcolonial Key Concepts (1989) has been used as a theoretical lens. The research resulted that novel is full of the issues of postcoloniality and the two concepts; appropriation and abrogation have strong presence in Chimamanda Ngozi Adhichi’s Americanah.