UNVEILING THE UNCONSCIOUS: A PSYCHOANALYTIC READING OF ADOLESCENT IDENTITY IN BOLAJI ABDULLAHI’S SWEET SIXTEEN AND KHADIJA ABUBAKAR JALLI’S THE LIFE CHANGER
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2025/4v9dft87Keywords:
Psychoanalysis, adolescence, Nigerian literatureAbstract
Abstract
Bolaji Abdullahi’s Sweet Sixteen and Khadija Abubakar Jalli’s The Life Changer have received considerable scholarly attention, particularly for their didactic orientation and cultural significance within Nigerian youth literature. However, existing studies have largely overlooked the psychoanalytic dimensions of these texts. This paper addresses this critical gap by offering a novel interpretation grounded in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It explores the unconscious structures of desire, repression, symbolic authority, and identity formation that shape the adolescent subjectivities of the texts’ protagonists, Aliya and Salma. Through a comparative close reading, the study demonstrates that Aliya’s psychological development is mediated by a nurturing paternal figure, which facilitates her integration into the ‘Symbolic Order’ and supports the formation of a coherent ego identity. In contrast, Salma’s narrative arc is marked by resistance to symbolic authority, identity fragmentation, and the compulsive pursuit of unattainable desires; the textual unfolding reflects a deeper psychic disturbance and a dislocation from normative structures of meaning. Thus, the textual analysis foregrounds the latent unconscious dynamics within the selected texts and reveals how ideology, gender, and psyche converge in the construction of adolescent experience. The study therefore offers an original contribution to the fields of psychoanalytic literary criticism and African youth literature by illuminating the psychological undercurrents that inform female adolescent identity in contemporary Nigerian fiction.
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