L’ENFANCE DANS UNE ENIGME D’IFEOMA ONYEMELUKWE

Abstract

Children, as a result of their curiosity enjoy staying around elderly people especially their grandparents in order to listen to old time stories and folklores about their people. They love holding up and adhering to parental instructions when these ones play their roles as guardians. However, children could manifest some elements of wicked attitudes as a way of revolting against the society when they feel abandoned and neglected by it. This communication gives itself the task of studying childhood as it appears in Ifeoma Onyemelukwe’s childhood based creative literary work using the sociological and psychoanalytical approaches. It is observed that childhood is a period in which children love to dream and fantasize about everything they want or see within the society in which they live. To this effect, this article is a discovery of childish attitudes as presented in the life of Amaka, the heroine in Ifeoma Onyemelukwe’s Une énigme as well as in the life of other children in the novel.