Africa in the Eye of Contemporary African Child: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Noviolet Bulawayo’s <i>We Need New Names</i>

Abstract

Even with the immense global innovations in technology and education, millions of children in most African nations are out of school. They are denied education due to greedy political leadership and irresponsible parenting in their respective nations. Zimbabwe is one of such African nations. The unfortunate predicaments of children in this nation many years after decolonization are dramatized in Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. In this narrative, Bulawayo engages the technical elements of voice, action and settings to expose the vulnerability of contemporary Zimbabwean children. Through Darling, who is the child protagonistnarrator, we glimpse into the unfortunate realities of the contemporary Zimbabwean children: they are out of school, neglected, and starved, physically, emotionally and sexually abused amongst many other atrocities against them. Using the qualitative research method, as well as Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical strand of Child Development Theoretical paradigm, this study has not only examined the various aspects of physical and psychological abuses of the contemporary African child, but has also discovered that these supposed future leaders can only access qualitative education, decent shelter, food and modern technology through migration to other developed climes, particularly the United States of America and Dubai, a journey from which they are not likely to return soon. This unfortunate development portends a bleak future for most of these nations and the continent at large.