Brother or Other? Adolescence and Native Relations in the British and German Adventure Novels of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1870–1905

Abstract

By examining three tropes of the adolescent's rite of passage to a colonizer in several British and German adventure novels of the late nineteenth century, this article reveals fundamental problems with the underlying binary constructions of the novel that are illuminated by the coming of age process. While critics typically view the young adult as either child-like or the mouthpiece of adult imperialist rhetoric, this article argues instead that they should be viewed as hybrid, liminal figures that neither completely accept nor resist colonial pedagogy. Instead, the adolescent training in native relations reveals the boys' fundamental reliance on the Other.