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South Asian Research Journal of Arts, Language and Literature (SARJALL)
Volume-8 | Issue-04
Review Article
Migrant Female Identities: Dual and Hybrid Selves in Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl
Mary Adebayo
Published : Aug. 3, 2026
DOI : https://doi.org/10.36346/sarjall.2026.v08i04.003
Abstract
Migration and Identity discourses have attracted the interest of Nigerian female writers across literary generations. Over the years, studies on migration and women’s identities have focused on patriarchal, racial, and gendered discourses. Most recently, scholarly interest has shifted to portrayals and constructs of women’s identities not just from the hegemonic, traditional or racial contexts but to the focus on fragmentations and dualities. Focusing on Homi Bahbah’s theory of hybridity this paper attempts to capture the complexities of identities in the consciousness of migrants especially adolescent females. Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl demonstrate multiple and multilayered identities as realities of women from multi-cultural roots to reinforce the author’s perspectives on the complexities of global and local cultures. The paper concludes that Oyeyemi’s novel captures multicultural and racial consciousness of females portrayed in modern and global settings. In The Icarus Girl, Jessamy suffers frustrations, anxieties and psychological stress as a British Nigerian owing to double consciousness and the entaglements of being a twin in the African melieu.

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