Hybridity in Ezekiel Mphahleles Down Second Avenue

Hybridity in Ezekiel Mphahlele s Down Second Avenue The criticism that Mphahlele s awareness of his being a hybrid person imparts an inability to his being able to write his story himself is a criticism contrived out of literal derivations of the Greek components of the word autobiography. The textual landscape of Down Second Avenue includes many varied and detailed arenas, the rural setting and its many dimensions, the city and its many dimensions. In the sense that autobiography is part of the genre of biography in the postclassical European tradition, that being the life accounts of saints and princes, the criticism is perhaps true to some extent. However, in the aspect of the autobiography being a search for identity and†¦show more content†¦Mphahlele relates his well justified fear of the Gaza church, where in one instance the priest tries to saw off an invalid child s legs after a failed prayer healing attempt. He constantly juxtaposes the positions of the various churches on issues such as the government s education policy. He compares those aspects of each he reveres as well as those he disparages. The church is a universal phenomenon in the psyche and day to day experience of the writer throughout his childhood and early adulthood. He sees how the various churches are both a help and hindrance . His church based education of early and late childhood and his position of employment as teacher are accrued through church institutions. However, he loathes the church for the disparateness of people around him including his grandmother: The teaching that broke down a good deal of the individualism of the eastern Transvaal Africans. In this aspect Mphahlele reveals clearly both the hybridity as well as the symmetry between the various churches in his experience. An important dichotomy is Mphahlele s determined vocation as academic and teacher and his employment as messenger boy, journalist. He is fired as messenger boy under the familiar South African axiom, being cheeky. He relates how possessing an academic qualification is in fact a hindrance to obtaining basic employment. His