Themes In Diana Adesola Mafe's Knowing Your Place

For this project, our group decided to make a powerpoint to explore themes and connections to other novels, from the short story, Knowing Your Place, by Diana Adesola Mafe. The story presented several important motifs for in depth analysis. The two major themes we explored were identity and stereotype driven bias. Furthermore, we went on to connect the protagonist of the story to the protagonist of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian; both protagonists were visionaries who despite their different sights, encountered relatable obstacles.

Mafe’s personal struggle to grow content and comfortable with her self-identity was prevalent throughout the story. A handful of components set Mafe apart from others. She’s multiracial and multicultural. Additionally,

In the incident on the university campus, she mentions that upon seeing the man that called her the racial slur, she immediately classified him as a ‘redneck’ or ‘hick’ in her head. Her perception of him was initially negative on sight, which she admits is a form of negative stereotyping. Yet, unfortunately her knee jerk judgement of the man turned out to be accurate. He proved he was a bigot when he uttered the n-word to her. This shows how stereotypes are often rooted in past experience to some degree. The man was likely a racist as a result of his social environment, which equates to past experiences of judgements based upon race. At the same time, the author immediately thought poorly of the man because of his clothing, which shows she likely has had issues with similar people at other points in her life. The difference between the author and the racist man was that although both judged the other without any knowledge of them, the author addressed her prejudices and treated the man as she would anyone else. On the other hand, this man let his racist stereotypes perpetuate and even acted on them. By recognizing her initial negative reaction to that man, the author presents that case that although avoiding prejudice entirely is impossible, there are two potential courses of action. The first would be to allow that prejudice to manifest, which leads to ongoing injustice and discrimination. The second option would be to think critically on one’s own biases and actively choose to disregard