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Representation of Women in African Literature with reference to the novels- Things Fall Apart, Waiting for the Barbarians and A Grain of Wheat
Prepared by- Urvi Dave
Course- M.A.- II
Semester- 4
Paper no. - 14
Paper name- The African Literature
Enrollment no. – 14101009
Batch- 2014-16
Email id- dave.urvi71@gmail.com
Submitted to- Smt. S. B. Gardi
Department
of English
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Introduction
Women's
place in society is thought a lot in contemporary studies. In literature,
women's representation is observed and criticized with feminist approach. Like
most literature around the world, African literature also portrays women in
different shades. In early African works, incomplete and inaccurate female
characters are littered. The fact, like other literature, African literature
was first written by men. Educated African men not only come from patriarchal
society but were educated by colonizers, who also come from patriarchal
society. Some feminist critics say that male francophone African writers
routinely portray their female characters in the stereotype of an oppressed and
subjugated wife who has little if any say in shaping her destiny or changing
the system that deprives and oppresses her. The African novels present
different images of women in the contemporary patriarchal society. Female
character do not have their own identity or story to be called or celebrated.
But they are always portrayed as less heroic than men and in periphery. The
famous African writers like Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ulasi, Chinua Achebe,
Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Amos Tutuola and Ben Okri use African imagery in
portraying and dramatizing the characters and situation, for effect and
authenticity.
African societies are primarily viewed as
masculine. Feminine perspective of Africa and African society, especially about
the role of women in African novels, is richly illuminating. In African natives
religion and African life, it is the image of the chief deity, the Goddess of
earth that dominates. The chief deities of the Ewe community of Ghana are Mawu and Lisa. Mawu representing the moon
is a female while Lisa symbolizing the sun is masculine. The image of Mawu greatly
influences the life and living of the people. Though men do not duly regard
women, she is universally acknowledged as the mother of mankind.
Gender discrimination, family
constraints and social restrictions on women are the greatest banes of African
society. Some female voices scream that the real place of woman is in her home.
However, women are sometimes glorified in their personal life as family
caretakers and teachers. Woman constitutes a force to nourish and shapes the
young minds in her family. In the traditions-bound society, she is confined to
her home discharging her primary duties. The creation of myth and literary
image of Africa meaning one's physical attachment, formulates the woman's place
in the house. But still in some cases, as a stereotype, the idea of an 'African
dilemma' is there with representation of women. African women have to choose
between being true to their traditional culture and embracing thee colonising
western culture and having equal rights is an interesting one. The study of
women characters, portrayed in African colonized literature is an interesting
with that one can know human nature of colonising, marginalizing or making other race gender religion
subaltern.
THINGS
FALL APART BY CHINUA ACHEBE
Umofia,
the village in Achebe's Things Fall Apart respects only one women called
Chielo, the priestess of the Oracle of the hills and the caves. Chielo has a
dual role to play as an ordinary woman and as the one to reprimand the
offenders of the community. She, as the spokesperson of the deity, screams at
Okonkwo when he accompanies his wife and daughter to the shrine of the Oracle
of the hills and the caves: beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Okonkwo,
the great warrior and matchless wrestler, rants at Nwoye's mother.. Do what you
are told woman. Okonkwo's wife becomes meek and dumb before Chielo. Achebe has
presented the image of an idealized woman, thereby opening the space for women
to become active and involve themselves along with men in the nation-building
activities. They are the images of progressive women though they are not fully
evolved characters. Achebe's Chielo is a priestess and a healer whose roles
allow her control of spaces that the fearless Okonkwo is cautious about
entering. Confident of these spaces and the social environment on a moonlit
night, she runs through the town with a sick Ezinma on her back. Throughout
Chielo's race that night, her voice calls out greetings to notable community
personages and Agbala. Chielo's voice shows no hint of oppression or suppressed
womanhood. The fact that Ezinma recovers after the encounter with Chielo also
speaks about Chielo's power in Agbala.
There is no male equivalent to this
role of priestess in African life. Okonkwo must follow later and wait in the
shadows as woman-as-priestess and Agbala renegotiate the child's health and
continuance. Significant here is the fact that the process of ritual and
negotiation are embedded in narrative tradition and practice. Like Achebe,
Nwapa makes use of this relationship in Efuru in which the major characters
have praise names. Achebe says-
"Names
reflect the circumstances of one's birth and family background."
Many women in the novel are flat
characters who are satisfied with oppressive structures like Polygamy as
Okonkwo's wives. Critics condemn Achebe for being too male-focused, there could
be many reasons for this lack of female representation. One is that, readers
are seeing the culture and events largely from Okonkwo's point of view, who could
be said to have unenlightened gender views by Ibo standards. For example- when
he is sent to his mother's village, be cannot answer to his uncle why a common
name and saying is "mother is
supreme", Uchendu, his uncle replies, "A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is
sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness, be finds refuge in his
motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there that's why
we say mother is supreme." In these words, women as mother is respected.
The portrayal of Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma, is the only visible rounded female
character in the novel. There is evidence in the novel which suggests that
Achebe was showing ridiculous nature of a strong patriarchal society. Ezinma
was intelligent enough to eventually run the family the way Okonkwo wanted.
Okonkwo says-
"She
has the right spirit."
Okonkwo is unable to think outside of
his cultural paradigm, when Ezinma offers to carry Okonkwo's chair to the
wrestling match, traditionally a boy's job, Okonkwo says-
"No,
that's a boy's job."
Instead of finding a way to let Ezinma
run the home, be only comments that "She should have been a boy."
It
shows Achebe's poverty in describing woman character in patriarchal world.
Still there was not much female representation in the novel. It is important to
realize that Achebe wrote this novel to justify his native culture, where women
become victims, to European audiences, who were patriarchal themselves. With
the exception of Ezinma, Achebe's female characters in the novel were not
rounded or visible. Okonkwo carries more space and female characters are
marginalized in narrated patriarchal culture.
A
GRAIN OF WHEAT BY NGUGI WA THION'GO
A
Grain of Wheat is a political narrative talking about Mau Mau Kenyan movement
first placed in forest. The movement included both men and women against
British colonizers. Women played remarkable role directly or indirectly in that
rebellion. Ngugi pays respect to these women and celebrates their limitless
sacrifices, their contribution and struggle for freedom of the homeland in this
novel. The novel describes heroic women as providing the invisible backbone to
the movement. The writer also made use of traditional African values of
womanhood to fight with the enemies. Wambui, the major character in the novel,
is a model of the resistant woman during emergency; she carried secrets from
the villages to towns. Incident of Wambui and policeman is very significant in
portraying her character. For example- Karanja, Kihika and Gikonyo encounter
Mumbi at Gikonyo's workshop, she is addressed respectfully as Karanja calls her
"Mother of Men, we have come, make us some tea." Kihika, the Mau Mau
hero in the novel, refers to the homeland as mother as be proudly says
"With us, Kenya is our mother."
Female identities and anatomies
become symbolically bound to motherhood and to the nation. We can find
privileging of motherhood in Ngugi's fiction. In the novel, where Gikonyo has
an inferiority, Mumbi is more self-assured and capable of action. Gikonyo's
mother, Wangari, refuses to accept defeat when her husband beats and rejects
her, accusing her of sexual coldness. She displays undaunted courage when she
settles in Thabai with her baby son. Wambui introduces the active role of women
in the movement, while Karanja's mother mirrors Nyokabi's defiance of the
traditional female role, as she questions the action of men. Ngugi, through the
depiction of the ideal patriotic women pays great tribute to the African women
especially in those dark days. The strength and courage of certain black women
is incontestable in relating the fight for freedom. Ngugi through the persons
of Wambui and Mumbi clearly shows us that though the men were fighting openly,
the war led by the women was as much important as theirs. Example- Wambui's
"now-famous drama at the worker's strike in 1950," how through her
words and the common action of women they had revived the strength of men. There
is also the comic episode of how Wambui "once carried a pistol tied to her
thighs near the groins" where behind the comic account of the incident,
Ngugi portrays the courage and role of women in freedom fighting. If African
women had not been such an inner force, Kenya would have never been what it is
today. This argument is illustrated by Mumbi's inner force during the emergency
period. She is in fact the character who depicts the ideal African woman
according to Ngugi. Strong, beautiful, both and furthermore mother of a child,
be strength during that period if far than admirable, "In the end, she
tied a belt around her waist and took on a man's work."
Far from the sensual woman, she
has the ability to play a completely different role which is that of the
submissive woman or rather wife. Mumbi, who despite having survived during
harsh times, has to bear the authority of Gikonyo at home, "I'll make you
shut this mouth of a whore", he cried out, slapping her on the left cheek.
Ngugi does not seem to criticize this attitude of Mumbi; her attitude as a
weakness, the author transforms this into a strength by the characters. Mumbi's
mother Wanjiku says-
"The
women of to-day surprise me. They cannot take a slap, soft as feather, or the
slightest breath, from a man. In our time, a woman could take blow and blow
from her husband without a though to running back to her parents."
Ngugi Wa Thion'go enrich African
literature with portraying his woman characters strong, courageous and
patriotic, who equally and sometimes more than male characters,, participate in
struggle for freedom.
WAITING
FOR THE BARBARIANS BY J.M. COETZEE
Waiting
for the Barbarians is set in an indeterminate place and time. It is an allegory
about the evils of colonialism. The story is told with the point of view of a
Magistrate. The novel has one woman character, Barbarian girl, with whom
portrayal of woman character can be studied. She is a prisoner of Colonel
Joll's but after their release she is left behind by her folk in the outpost,
begging, semi-blinded and disfigured from the torture. This symbolizes in
extremes that how people can be transformed to be perceived as the other by an
ideology and how the normal can turn out to be abnormal by the system. She will
always stay as the other, both as a Barbarian in the eye of the empire and as
carrying the marks of the empire in her uncanny body, in the eyes of her folk.
Wenzel reads the relationship between the Magistrate and the girl by saying
that-
"The
Magistrate seeks to eliminate his sense of the girl's otherness and to
understand the pain of her torture as her verbally and physically probes the
girl in an effort to read the signs of torture written on her body."
Actually, Barbarian girl is a symbol of
colonized. Her relationship with Magistrate is of master and slave. She is
tortured by colonizers. She is not colonized by empire but as a woman by the
Magistrate as well. He uses her body as an object. The narration never gives us
the view point of the Barbarian girl, but the magistrate attempts to understand
feminine Viewpoint. He is even at one point dressed as a woman by his torturers
who are servants of the empire. The empire and the Barbarian culture are
symbolically represented by the magistrate and the Barbarian girl and their
relationship the same. The Magistrate
sometimes sympathies the girl but it is also true that he uses as an object,
he becomes cause of her sorrows. Sometimes, the girl plays a role of the
catalyst for the change that takes place in the Magistrate; she fulfills the
role as colonized woman. Coetzee's choice to put a girl as a symbol of
colonized, slave and subaltern indicates woman's position in society and in
men's mind.
CONCLUSION
These
three famous African novels represent women differently. One has no significant
space for women. One made women courageous, strong and even greater than men;
and one made it slave, colonized and inferior. These different portrayals shows
women's role in different situations and different cultures, which is moving
and not static.
Works Cited
"Things Fall
Apart."
http://studyquestion.blogspot.in/2012/11/portrayal-of-women-in-contemporary.html?m=1
http://www.academia.edu/8325497/A_Grain_of_Wheat
Class Notes
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