Pessimism, Autonomy, and Commodity Fetishism in Ayi Kwei Armahis The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Abstract

A common critical focus in treatments of The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born concerns the ontological status of the novel's vision of social reality in Ghana immediately preceding the February coup of 1966. Considerations of the work's depiction of a paralyzed, thoroughly corrupt social order range from those that perceive the work as an expression of profound philosophical pessimism to those that view the closing moments of the novel as an articulation of guarded optimism for the future. Writing from the optimistic school of thought, Neil Lazarus notes that "[c]ritics of the novel have not found it easy to describe [the] relationship between affirmative vision and degraded reality" (137) expressed throughout the work. This difficulty has led many critics to identify the dominant perspective of the novel as pessimistic. Furthermore, much of the criticism that views the novel as a work of uncompromising pessimism refuses to grant any critical substance to its representation of Ghanaian society.