Abstract:
The removal of individuals from a primary location to a different location is occasioned by diverse reasons which eventually result in having different places to call home. The idea of home here is a place where such people are accepted and given shelter. This movement may be actual (physical) or virtual (psychological). Exile has become associated with the movement of people from a primary area to a different location but it is different in that it may be forced; internal, external or intrinsic. This study takes a look at the concept of exile by tracing its historical development and subsequently referring to its existence in Nigeria, hence, making Nigeria a primary location of interest. While relying on a careful text-based description, exile is revealed in A. Igoni Barrett’s Blackass and Gabriel Okara’s The Voice as having a huge psychological impact on its characters. The psychological impact which is a build up of factors like their environment, their life experiences, their responsibilities and expectation, is part of what this study investigates. Both novels have been variously studied as literary texts which espouse the curse of colonialism and to buttress the notion, the postcolonial literal theory has been applied to study them. The cause of constant removal from a primary homeland and its effects have been however discovered to be more psychological, hence this study’s approach to apply psychoanalytic theory in its exploration on exile in Barrett’s Blackass and Okara’s The Voice.
