‘Leaving for Europe’: Failure of Hope and the Problem of Return in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon

This paper examines the socio-cultural and economic factors pushing Africans to Europe. The choice of Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon illustrates this idea. The paper explores the factors motivating the migration of Africans to Europe. The study draws from postcolonial concepts such as ‘otherness,’ ‘marginality,’ ’liminality,’ and Paul Gilroy’s postcolonial concepts of melancholia, and conviviality to explore those socio-economic and political factors that tend to limit the African migrant’s ability to realize the dream of a better life in the West. The study also adopts aspects of Freudian psychoanalytic theory to examine the psychological crisis the characters go through due to the failed dreams of a better life in Europe. The paper also analyses how the novelist employs aspects of literary styles to explore the thematic concerns in the novel. The qualitative content analysis method is adopted for this study for a deeper understanding of social interaction in society. The study concludes that migration to Western countries is not a solution to Africa’s poverty condition.

Keywords: Migration Illusion Disillusionment Postcolonial Melancholia Conviviality

Author

• Okache C. Odey
  Department of English and Literature
  Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka
  co.odey@stu.unizik.edu.ng