It is also notable that Aidoo avoids language that would indicate any specific historical landscape the line that refers to “ticky-tackies” can certainly be read as evoking the meaninglessness of contemporary Western materialism, but remains broad enough that the aforementioned interpretation could in no way be definitively argued.Īs the narrative evolves from its multivalent opening to establishing the specifics surrounding Aidoo’s protagonist as she departs from Ghana and lives abroad, Sissie’s experiences in Germany seem to function only as a literary groundwork for the destabilizing perceptions of Western culture that permeate the text. In this sense, “we” refers directly to the reader it is not just the text’s characters who suffer from blocked brains and cluttered views, but the individual who turns these pages is also seemingly guilty of this distorted perspective. Her usage of “we,” without any narrative detail to contextualize this language, establishes a link between the unidentified speaker and the individual consuming the text. Here, Aidoo immediately establishes a relationship with the reader that is fundamental to understanding how the entire text functions.

Dramatically formatted with no discernible pattern, Aidoo writes: “Things are working out… towards their dazzling conclusions… ….so it is neither here nor there, what ticky-tackies we have saddled ourselves with, blocked our views, cluttered our brains” (Aidoo 3-5).

Before delving into social issues that are firmly situated in a specific cultural moment, Our Sister Killjoy opens with an enigmatic collection of sentences spanning multiple pages.

Sister killjoy