Our Sister Killjoy Literary Elements

Fiction

The settings of the novel include Ghana and Europe (England and Germany) in the late 20th century.

There are two narrators: an omniscient narrator and Sissie.

Tone: serious, impassioned, contemptuous, questioning, self-assured

Mood: pensive, uncomfortable, enraged, passionate

The protagonist in the novel is Sissie, a Ghanaian student who moves to Europe on a scholarship; Europeans and colonists are antagonists.

The major conflict is between Sissie and the Africans who left their homeland and moved to Europe in order to make their lives better.

There is not a traditional climax because the book is in four different sections and jumps around chronologically. However, a few candidates for climax include Marija's attempt to seduce Sissie and her rejection of that attempt; Sissie's speaking up at the student union meeting; and Sissie's encounter with Kunle, which reveals her new consciousness about postcolonialism and the "been-tos."

1. Sissie's encounter with Sammy, an African man who had spent time abroad, makes her feel uneasy and she "shivered and fidgeted in her chair" (9), which foreshadows her uncomfortable situations to come.
2. Sissie sees a "strangeness" in Marija's eyes the first time she picks her up at night, which foreshadows her eventual move on Sissie.

1. "The worst of them / these days supply local / statistics for those population studies, and / toy with / genocidal formulations" (7).

1. There are numerous allusions to contemporary events, such as independence, the leadership of Nkrumah, and the Biafran War.
2. "Our Sister thought she heard the music of the spheres" (11) refers to the theory that there is celestial music produced by the movement of the heavenly bodies.
3. "Lucifer, poor Black Devil" (27) is a reference to Satan.
4. "a certain calmness / That passeth all understanding" (35) alludes to the Bible verse Philippians 4:5 about a peace which passeth all understanding.
5. Dahomey is an ancient kingdom in Africa (37).
6. "Livingstone the Saint / Opening / Africa up for / Rape" (92) is an allusion to Dr. Livingstone, a Scottish minister and explorer of Africa.
7. The De Gaulle who died is Charles De Gaulle, the former leader of France.

Much of the imagery about Europe is of it being cold—cold weather, cold food, cold people with pale skin—which is contrasted with the warmth of Africa.

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1. "How can a / N***er rule well / Unless his / Balls and purse / Clutched in / Expert White Hands."
2. "Oppressed multitudes from the provinces rush to the imperial seat because that is where they know all salvation comes from" (87).

1. "Meanwhile, the moon had been traveling at eye level with them all night. Silent, deathly pale" (11).
2. "So she walked along...feasting her village eyes" (12).
3. "After / Each shocking experience / Mother Earth recovers— / That, of course is true, / But, with some effort / Battered as she is" (36).
4. Ghana "had / Greatness thrust upon her / Once" (53).
5. Marija's bottles of beauty products "stood, tall and elegant with slender necks and copious bottoms" (63).
6. "France is surrounded by a special situational fog all her own" (85).