Colonialism

Our Sister Killjoy addresses colonialism both explicitly, in Sissie’s thoughts, and implicitly, in the structure of the novel and in the interactions amongst the characters. Sissie frequently thinks about colonialism, which she credits with infecting her and others with inferiority complexes. Sissie’s thoughts frequently bring the reader to Ghanaian and African characters who mimic the mannerisms and accents of white Europeans out of, it is implied, an impossible desire of becoming white themselves. This desire for whiteness and, by extension power and status, is also reflected in the novel’s motif of food, described below.

Implicitly, the novel addresses the history of colonialism in two main ways, so structurally significant that they are not immediately obvious: first, the fact that Sissie’s journey through Europe eventually lands her in England, the seat of the British empire that colonized her home country of Ghana; and...