Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the concepts of hegemony and resistance in three
postcolonial novels, A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah as well as Purple Hibiscus. The study
also analysed how identity is constructed in the three novels. Qualitative research was used as the
approach of the study with postcolonialism as the theoretical framework. The analysis was done in light
of Frantz Fanon’s books, The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin White, White Masks. The study was
based on the argument that the colonial world has transformed the mind of the colonised in significant
ways as the dominant groups tend to view the colonised people as being subordinate, making them
subjects of their manipulation. It is this form of oppression that leads to the magnification of one
culture at the expense of the other and consequently the shattering of identity. Based on the findings of
the study, some major trends on hegemony were found in the three novels. The study found that there
is still hegemonic rule in the postcolonial society. The following types of hegemony were found in the
novels: personal hegemony, political hegemony, hegemony in education, globalisation hegemony,
colonial hegemony, monetary hegemony, religious hegemony, cultural hegemony, and military
hegemony. Resistance against hegemony in the three novels has been employed through educated
intellectuals and using violence for freedom. The modes of resistance include the role played by the
educated intellectual in resisting oppression, and the second one includes the violent ways in which the
oppressed oppose their coloniser. The identity of the colonised, as portrayed in the novels, is one that is
dislocated and separated from its native roots. The analysis on identity in all of the three novels reveals
that the colonised society faces a crisis in identity, an alienated identity. However, the two novelists
have tried to revive this deformed identity through fiction.
