Poetic justice and after-life vengeance in Chika Unigwe’s <i>On Black Sisters’ Street</i> and Felix N. Ogoanah’s <i>The Return of Ameze</i>

Abstract

This article examines Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street and Felix N. Ogoanah’s The Return of Ameze as two African novels that portray the avenging abilities of hurting souls even when they have bodily departed the world. Both writers deploy characters that have been treated unjustlyas trafficked victims, but at death, wreck vengeance on their living tormentors and victimizers asa considered measure of poetic justice. For theoretical framework, this paper adopts the moralistic theory in its analysis. The moralistic theory stresses the author’s need to instruct the reader on the need for moral rectitude and avoid the unpleasant and dire consequences of deliberate wrong doings towards others. The paper finds that the dead are able to effect poetic justice by tormenting the living-offenders, by haunting their homes and placing curses on them and their children through the liberated soulsas a good measure of poetic justice handed down bythe authors.