Embodying “twoness in oneness” in Diana Evans’s26a
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Diana Evans's debut novel 26a deals with the parallel childhood and subsequent dissimilar adult development of a set of female identical twins. Identical twins problematize the definition of identity and individuality by their superfluity, since being an identical twin is paradoxical, in that that one's body is a signifier of both individuality and twoness or duality. This article investigates the space of individual identity. Focusing on the body as the primary space of interaction, it analyzes the problematics inherent to a relation of twinship in Nigerian and western tradition, and the significance of the trope of twins in Evans's narrative, where it functions as a way of negotiating an ethnically diverse identity. The idea of space is important in the construction of the twins' identities; physical dislocation and dissimilar experiences bring about identity crises, and eventually death for one of the twins.
Source: Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Author: Irene Pérez-Fernández
Institution: Universidad de Oviedo
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2093963907