Nigerian Fiction

While studies on the patriarchal order and the marginalization of women in male-authored African novels abound, not much has been done to examine together the works of female novelists of different orientations. This study therefore examines the treatment of patriarchy in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood and Sefi Atta's Everything Good Will Come. The feminist theory linked with the postcolonial theory constitutes our theoretical framework. The study demonstrates how Emecheta and Atta have exposed the oppressive  proclivity of the male characters and have bestialized the male characters in these novels.

Of concern in this paper is an examination of the feminine in three Nigerian novels: Things Fall Apart, Sozaboy, and Half of a Yellow Sun.  More specifically this paper seeks to explore the significance in how women are represented linguistically across all three pieces of literature.  An engagement with Florence Stratton's Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (2002) and Deborah Tannen's Gender and Discourse (1994) provides a theoretical framework in which to examine these three novels.

Let us now examine Alkali's position on the questions of whether she is a liberal womanist or radical feminist and her posture on the interdependence of sexes. It's apparent that Alkali gives the woman a voice to make demands for her right and freedom in her novels. Therefore, as she dances to the tune of all feminist novelists in Africa, it is imperative to examine whether Alkali is liberal womanist of radical feminist.