{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01875901875901876, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.1371681415929205, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Regimentation or Hybridity? Western Beauty Practices by Black Women in Adichie’s Americanah

The postcolonial subject is one whose life is rife with contradictions. These contradictions result from a torsion of Western and indigenous values and culture in the individual. The woman as a postcolonial subject seems to deal with more of these incongruities in almost every sphere as she negotiates life in the postcolony and other societies that facilitated colonization and still does in some aspects. Several writers have sought to capture the uniqueness of the postcolonial female in contemporary times, bringing to the fore issues that plague her. The phenomenon of “imperial aesthetics” (basically beauty in the Western sense) is the foremost of these issues and the core of this article. It is presented as it applies to the Black woman in aspects such as hair, skin color, and physique. This adoption of imperial notions of beauty is rooted in self-loathing, argued by postcolonial thinkers to arise from the psychological effects of colonization. Hence, the explication of this phenomenon will go a long way in demonstrating the forms of self-expression that the Black woman chooses and which ultimately make up her identity. Consequently, this article will focus on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s presentation of the subject in her novel, Americanah, using the postcolonial approach.