Scrutinizing Violence and Identity in Makoha’s poem At Gunpoint: A Fanonian Reading

Abstract

This paper analyses Nick Makoha's poem "At Gunpoint”. This paper aims to study the human body as a site of violence and revolt, this paper also aims to uncover how violence is inevitable in order to proclaim identity. The research uses Frantz Fanon's concepts of colonialism and violence. This study finds that this poem shows that the violence due to colonialism affects the body, it portrays the broken sense of self caused by colonialism (including betrayal within the oppressed). Additionally, this study explores the way this poem deals with the complicated idea of revolutionary violence as a path to freedom. This poem finds that the violence is inevitable in the quest for identity. By connecting the poem to Frantz Fanon's concept of Colonial violence and also interpreting the poem in the historical context of Idi Amin's controversial regime in Uganda. The study exposes that there is a lasting psychological impact upon the colonized who experience the wrath of violence. The lost of identity and psychological dilemma is also an outcome of this research. This study concludes that the political impact of colonialism is present in both, the postcolonial societies and literature produced in the societies once colonized, whether by some external power or the natives.