Drumspeak: International Journal of Research in the Humanities

Editorial

Roger Asempasah — 2023-03-01

This special issue of Drumspeak brings together five papers that shed novel theoretical and interpretive insights on Amma Darko’s novel Beyond the Horizon. Written in the fin de siècle of the long twentieth century, Beyond the Horizon is a sobering meditation on the migration of Africans to the West. It is an important text in the subgenre of African literature that focuses on migration, dislocation, prostitution, and the crisis of expectations that confront African migrants in the West. The novel is, therefore, central to what Iheka and Taylor (2018, p. 18) call “the migration turn in African cultural productions.” Since its publication, Beyond the Horizon has generated a
significant corpus of literature that attests to the
amplitude of Darko’s craft and vision.

In pursuit of dreams: migration and toxic masculinity in beyond the horizon

Theresah Patrine Ennin — 2023-03-01

This paper explores masculinity and migration, analyzing the complex processes of sustaining manhood in a different
environment in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon. The paper argues that the fraught nature of the migrant experience
contributes to the creation of toxic masculinities and the perpetuation of gender-based exploitation of the female. Migration then creates new opportunities for male exploitative behaviour which is detrimental to the male himself.

Becoming conscious of the self: Spatial dynamics, character pairs and the feminist vision in Amma Darko’s beyond the horizon

Christabel Aba Sam — 2023-03-01

The relationship between spatial dynamics, character pairs and how this is constitutive of the feminist vision in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon has rarely been explored, despite the growing critical reception. The paper explores how Darko’s women become awakened by the redemptive roles of their fellow women through the narrative’s climatic journeys. Drawing on theories of spatiality and African feminisms, this paper argues that Darko’s attempt at associating specific characters within particular geographical contexts helps us to rethink controversial and conventional discourses on the African woman – sisterhood solidarity, education, financial freedom and bodily integrity as routes to the total emancipation of the African woman. Thus, the study suggests a shift from the rather clichéd argument that the text is male-targeted.

Reversing the imperial gaze, affirming possibility: Conrad and Fanon in Amma Darko's beyond the horizon

Rogers Asempasah — 2023-03-01

Drawing on Bakhtin’s notion of the dialogism of the word, especially double-voiced discourse, this paper examines Darko’s subtle inscription of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth in her novel Beyond the Horizon (1995). Specifically, the paper examines "horror" and the novel’s title as double-voiced discourse or dialogical sites of contestation and affirmation, respectively. It argues that while the Conradian subtext can be understood in the context of Darko’s reversal of Marlow’s imperial gaze in Heart of Darkness, the Fanonian subtext revolves around Darko’s politics of “beyond the horizon” which is contingent on decentering Europe as the location of hope for postcolonial people. By focusing on Darko’s subtle dialogue with Conrad and Fanon, the paper shows that Darko strategically frames Mara’s encounter with Europe as a journey into the “heart of darkness” and also foregrounds delinking from the West as an emancipatory ethic and thought for postcolonial transformation.

Clandestine, circumscribed and coded: Sexuality in Darko's beyond the horizon and Saadawi’s woman at point zero

Hannah Woode Amissah-Arthur — 2023-03-01

This paper explores sexuality in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1991) and Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero (1975). The African tradition regards issues of sexuality as a suppressed discourse which is integrated into a discreet, symbolic language. The portrayal of sexuality and its modes in which individuals realise themselves as subjects of sexual desire have been widely studied but works in which these characters have been presented as subjects of concupiscence have received very little attention. Adopting Michel Foucault’s notion that the history of sexual experience involves the correlation between fields of knowledge, types of normativity and forms of subjectivity in a particular culture, this paper examines the libidinous practices of characters. The paper concludes, among other things, that: firstly, Darko and Saadawi’s writings represent the African notion which considers sexuality to be a silent discourse; secondly, both novels manifest various forms of psychosexual attitude by the characters and the quest for sexual freedom and power.

“I am his pawn, his slave and his property”: A stylistic analysis of the abuse of women in Amma Darko's beyond the horizon

Daniel Oppong-Adjei — 2023-03-01

In Beyond the horizon, Amma Darko uses words in unique ways to bring the subject of gender representations and the abuse of women to the fore. Employing a stylistics framework of analysis, this study investigates the text’s parallelisms and deviations, and interprets and uncovers the implied and underlying meanings of issues related to the abuse of women in the novel. The analysis reveals how through patterned repetitions of words and sentences, as well as some language deviations in the text, men abuse women physically, emotionally, sexually and economically. The paper shows that through the use of patterned repetition of words and sentences, and deviations such as metaphor and simile, Darko reveals the struggles of and unequal relationships between the “pawn”, “slave” and “property” (largely represented by Mara) on one hand, and the “master”, “lord” and “pimp” (represented by Akobi, Oves and Osey) on the other hand.