Alcohol and drug abuse in fragmenting social identities among youths: Analysis of selected Kenyan fiction

Main Article Content

Vincent Odhiambo Oduor
Jairus Omuteche
David W. Yenjela

Abstract

This study examines the problems of excessive drug abuse and addiction among the Kenyan youths as represented in young adult fiction written by Kenyans. The study is motivated by works of a few popular fiction writers of 1970’s who introduced topics such as drug abuse and addiction in their works. These topics had been considered taboo by the early African writers of the 1960s but it is only recently that the same topics have been accepted in youth fiction. This study therefore discusses these writings as pictures that reflect how life of drugs affect the identity formation of the Kenyan youth. In the process of its enquiry, the study employs postmodern literary theory because young adults show themselves as unstable figures. They embody many ambiguities and contradiction. Qualitative in nature, this study employs data obtained from close reading of the selected literary texts. It therefore comes to a conclusion that the life of addict is presented as a life on the margins of society. They are either ignored or pitied by their surroundings, with rare occurrences of helpers, while the institutions prove to be ineffective and powerless. The unfortunate endings in the novels that portray addicts as vulnerable serve as a warning to young people to avoid drugs. These novels include, Moraa Gitaa’s The Shark Attack (2014), Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick (1974), Elizabeth Kabui’s Was Nyakeeru My Father?(2014).

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Oduor, V. O., Omuteche, J., & Yenjela, D. W. (2022). Alcohol and drug abuse in fragmenting social identities among youths: Analysis of selected Kenyan fiction. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.890
Section
Articles

How to Cite

Oduor, V. O., Omuteche, J., & Yenjela, D. W. (2022). Alcohol and drug abuse in fragmenting social identities among youths: Analysis of selected Kenyan fiction. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.890

References

Baudrillard, J. (1994).Simulacra And Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Berk, L. E. (2007). Development through the lifespan. (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education Inc.

Burger, J. M. (2008). Personality (7th ed.). Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth.

Culler, J. (2001). Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Translated by Filip & Marijana

Hameršak. Zagreb: AGM.

De Miranda, S. (1987). Drugs and drug abuse in Southern Africa. Pretoria: Van Schaik.

Erikson, E. H. (1977). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.

Etyang, Phillip. (2014) Misogyny in Urban Fiction: A Study of Selected Texts by MejaMwangi

Unpublished PhD Thesis. Kenyatta University.

Freud, Sigmund (1949). An outline of Psycho- Analysis. Trans. James Strachey. London: The

Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Gitaa, Moraa. (2014). The Shark Attack. Nairobi: Moraa Publishers.

Harvey, D (1989) The Condition Postmodernity. Oxford UK: Blackwell publishers.

Janković, J. (1994). Obitelj i droga: Primarna prevencija ovisnosti u obitelji. Zagreb: Školske

novine.

Kabui, Elizabeth (2014) Was Nyakeeru My Father. Nairobi: Longhorn Publishers.

Jaffe, M. L. (1998). Adolescence. New York: John Wiley &Sons.

Kehinde, Ayobami. (2004). “Post-Independence Disillusionment in Contemporary African

Fiction: The example of Meja Mwangi’s Kill me Quick. Nordic Journal of African Studies

(2):228-241

Kurtz, Rodgers. (1994). Urban Obsessions, Urban Fears: The Postcolonial Kenyan Novel,

Oxford: James Currey.

Mwangi, Meja (1974) Kill Me Quick. Nairobi: EAEP.

__________ (1976) Going Down River Road. Nairobi: EAEP.

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic Of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke

University Press.

Lyotard, J. F (1985). The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester University

Press.

Louw, D. A., van Ede, D. M. & Louw, A. E. (1998). Human development. (2nd ed.). Pretoria:

Kagiso Publishers.

Madu, S. N.& Matla, M. P. Q. (2003). Illicit drug use, cigarette smoking and alcohol. Drinking

behaviour among a sample of high school adolescents in the Pietersburg Area of the Northern Province, South Africa. Journal of Adolescence, 26(1), 121-136.

Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1998). Abnormal psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Pressley, M. & McCormick, C. B. (2007). Child and adolescent development for educators. New

York: The Guilford Press.

Rice, F. P. (1992). The adolescent: Development, relationship and culture. (7th ed.). London:

Allyn & Bacon.

Roberts, V. Edgar and Jacobs, E. Henry (1992). Literature: An Introduction to Reading and

Writing. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice- Hall Inc.

Sdorow, L. M. & Rickabaugh, C. A. (2002). Psychology. (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

Companies, Inc.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2009). World Drug Report. Retrieved July1, 2009

from http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_eng_web.pdf

Visser, M. J. & Routledge, L. (2007). Substance abuse and psychological well-being of South

African adolescents. South African Journal of Psychology, 37(3), pp.595-615