Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
over the years, the quest for womanhood and self-identity has been one of the major challenges which the female gender goes through especially in Africa. The struggle for women’s rights began in the 18th century during the period of intense intellectual activity known as the Age of Enlightenment. In traditional Africa, a woman is an object of constant scorn, degradation, and physical torture. In the past, women did not exist as individuals with personalities to defend. They rather existed as mere docile and exotic accompaniments to the males. Throughout that period, women lacked a voice to articulate their dilemma and their points of view.
They, thus, accepted their fate without resistance. Such a passive stance results from societal conditioning through questionable cultural practices. From birth, through childhood and adolescence, to adulthood, Africans receive from society and others around messages and feedbacks which launch them into roles and behaviors considered appropriate for males and females respectively. Most often, females are accorded inferior roles, and such long years of cultural suppression and intimidation, unfortunately, misled the women into an underestimation of their capabilities and self-worth. Encased in such a cultural mystique, the African women were particularly driven by a community sense since culture obviates individualism.
In those days, these women, in addition to experiencing the same oppressive social condition as their male counterparts in a developing world, were subjected to extra repressive burdens arising from the sociocultural structures of patriarchy and gender hierarchy. These years of subjugation have, however, produced in today’s women relentless questioning of the status quo. They protest against dehumanization, political enslavement, and social oppression. They rationalize that the running of the African world is not the preserve for males and thus there should be absolute equality of both sexes in all spheres of life. Such a reaction is termed feminism, which is an ideology that urges, in simple terms, recognition of the claims of women for equal rights with men.
According to Cora Kaplan Literary texts are constructed from within ideology, and the reality they articulate is dependent on the historical culture which surrounds them; so too are the literary critical claims about their truthfulness or authenticity determined by the culture from which they arise (162). Helen Chukwuma on her own specifically contends that African feminism is dedicated and informed from within, from social realities that obtain. One of such reality is the persistence of the sexist socio-psychological paradigm despite the efforts to overcome “the romanticism which informs social life”. (Uko, 33)
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
The persistent sexism in Africa is, however, matched by women’s continued aggressive demand for equal places in men’s former citadel of power and privilege. The chorus of African women says to men “Whatever the case may be, you will never again hear us pronounce the words of the Virgin Mary, ‘thy will be done’ while smiling at your despotic power”. (Josephine Felicite in Moses, C.G. and Rabine, L. 308-309). They argue that it is better for men to desire from them those noble and generous feelings which must exist between equals than those mercenary feelings which a slave has for his master. Consequent to this quest and argument, there is a recent definition of womanhood in the context of the African cosmic order: “A human being endowed with all the capabilities and talents required to effectively function and make an impact on all levels of life within society” (Adeife Osemeikhiam, 21).
Notwithstanding the above stance, there still abounds in Africa, evidence of gender stereotypes which simply means a collection of commonly held beliefs or opinions about what are “appropriate” behaviors and activities for males and those that are “appropriate” for females. As a result of this, even though men support women’s condemnation of their (women) societal deprivations, men’s language still betrays a subtle inclination to sexist socialization.
The New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, Sexism is exemplified firstly as attitudes and institutions, often unconscious that judge human worth on the grounds of gender or sex. It is explained as prejudice or discrimination usually against women, based on their gender. Sexist socialization, therefore, refers to the process by which infants and children are brought up to imbibe attitudes and practices that discriminate against women on the grounds of their gender.
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
This work examines Amma Darko’s Faceless and Beyond the Horizon with a view to highlighting its characteristic language usage and as well as the psychological disposition that informs such use of language. Research findings by anthropologists, educationists, and sociolinguistics show that traditionally, males use non-standard language; females use the language of rapport while males use the language of the report; discursive language style is meant for women while men are given to the language of theories and abstractions; females use polite language meant to maintain harmony and strong relationship as well as to keep conversations open whereas males use the language of assertiveness and insistence. Women use the language of solidarity but men use the language of the expert. It is however against the backdrop that this research seeks to examine adversity and female reconfiguration in Amma Darko’s Faceless and Beyond The Horizon
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The injustice and negative representation of women in African society and African literary works by most African male writers have led to clashes between male and female writers. The problem has made writers disagree in their perception and ideas about Feminism in African Fiction. Traditional gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive. In contrast, women are presented as emotional (irrational), weak and submissive. Gerdalerner quoted in lodge:
Women have been left out of history, not because of the evil conspiracies of men in general Or male historians in particular, but because we have Considered history only in male-centered terms, we Have missed their activities because of history Which is inappropriate to women.(345).
In some African literary works, there has been the problem of maltreatment of women by men in African fiction. The female characters are mostly maltreated and portrayed negatively as men extremity to male characters. Therefore, this research is set to investigate the manners in which women are deprived of their rights in African society
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine Adversity and female reconfiguration, using two carefully selected novels as primary data; Amma Darko’s Faceless and Beyond The Horizon through the Use of radical feminism to show that women should be treated equally as men and that gender difference is no excuse for maltreatment or sexual harassment. This work aims at bringing to deem light how cultural practices affect women, the pain they bring and the overall survival of the female gender, and the roles they could play in their community to make society a better place it also focuses on how women have struggled side by side with their male counterparts against the general injustice and oppression that the few privileged.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The importance of women in any given society cannot be underestimated and this research work will be significant in the following ways:
- It will reveal how women take part in revolutionary activities.
- It will also reveal how women play active roles with men in the development of society.
- It will also help men to learn how to value their women knowing full well that women are also human beings.
- It will also help another researcher to have the full knowledge of the importance of women in society and the need to treat them with care and love as the carriers of generation and life.
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
1.5 Research Methodology
The Study will be mainly library-based research. Amma Darko’s Faceless and Beyond The Horizon will be used as a primary source of information, while other information from the internet, published and unpublished articles, journals, copies of the earlier projects from the library, and other related resources will be used, and examined as the secondary.
1.6 Scope and Limitation of the Study
The scope of the study is restricted to an investigation of the Adversity and female reconfiguration in Amma Darko’s Faceless and Beyond The Horizon. Hence, the limitation of this study lies within the confines of the researcher’s inability to reach out for field documentation to further showcase the evil of negative representation of women in any society.
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko Faceless and Beyond the Horizon
