Mimicry in Ted Elemeforo's Fountain of Betrayal

Abstract

This paper examines mimicry as an opportunistic pattern of behavior where women or the oppressed copy or imitate the lifestyle, pattern, language, values, dress codes and food of people in power with the hope or desire to have access to that same power in the future in Ted Elemeforo's Fountain of Betrayal. Although the concept of mimicry has received significant attention, Fountain of Betrayal has not been examined along this axis. Furthermore, most of these earlier studies conceived mimicry only as an attempt by the colonized (black) to mimic the colonizer (white). The significance of this work is that it adopts the concept to mean, an attempt by the oppressed, especially women or any person in a disadvantaged position to mimic the behaviour of those in advantageous positions. Hence, it has added novelty to the corpus of Niger Delta literary scholarship. The essay adopts the qualitative research method for data collection, while the postcolonial theory was applied for analysis. Findings show that the actions of the women in the text are geared toward becoming relevant in the society they find themselves. The essay concludes that as pleasurable and desirable mimicry seems, it is also subversive. The study recommends a fair share of the oil boom in the Niger Delta across genders without discrimination. More so, further exploration of the concepts be done in recent Niger Deltan texts, to find out some other reasons for mimicry.