Narrative and Subversion: A Reading of Chris Abani's The Virgin of Flames

Abstract

This paper examines the subversive nature of Chris Abani’s narrative in the novel The Virgin of Flames. The process of storytelling is often narrative constructions of identity that involves tensions and contradictions in its attempt to represent the subject in relation to the larger human society. Narrativizing produces gaps, fissures, and boundary trouble and the subject’s position is never fixed or stable. The act of narrativizing is a process of identity construction because there is no single unified self that is capable of representing past experiences in its totality. This paper attempts a close reading of the selected text and locates the multiple ways in which Abani’s narrative subverts dominant identities concerning gender, race, sexuality, and religion. In the light of relevant critical theories, it explores the myriad ways in which the narrative in The Virgin of Flames subverts and delegitimizes societal norms and dominant narratives without resorting to blatant didacticism.