Internal and External Oppression: An Afrocentric Study of Some Selected Poems by Alice Walker and Ben Okri

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The present study tackles the marginalization and exploitation of Africans inside and outside Africa, particularly in America and Nigeria. Not only does it explore African people’s oppression, but it also reflects how the selected poets, Alice Walker and Ben Okri, resist this oppression through the theory of Afrocentricity. Walker demonstrates internal and external oppression forced upon African-American women and external oppression forced upon African-American men in her selected poems: “Women” (1973), “Be Nobody’s Darling” (1973), “She” (2013), “Occupying Mumia’s Cell” (2013), and “Is Celie Actually Ugly?” (2018). Moreover, she manifests how African-American women and men are able to transcend their marginalization and become at the center. Okri reveals internal and external oppression of Nigerians in Nigeria and external oppression of African-Americans in America in his selected poems: “An African Elegy” (1992), “Africa is a Reality Not Seen” (2021), “A Broken Song” (2021), “Diallo’s Testament” (2021), and “Breathing the Light” (2021). Furthermore, he calls Africans to break their constraints and speak about their power because they have tremendous culture and history. This is the only way for them to be transcended and centralized, not marginalized. The selected poems will be examined from an Afrocentric perspective. The study is thus meant to criticize both internal and external oppressive structures in America and Nigeria. The main finding contents that African-Americans and Nigerians in the selected poems transcend their marginalization and become at the center of the universe through the theory of Afrocentricity.

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