Womanism and Gender Reinvention in Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah

Abstract

The explorations of gender roles, a leitmotif in many modern African literary texts, has received critical investigative attention. Different  scholarly perspectives have redefined gender movements and ideologies with the uniqueness of the African cultural space. This study  examines the appropriation of the tenets of Womanism as a gender theory and movement in two of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novels,  Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah. Using Womanism, the texts are subjected to critical analysis with a close reading of the  characters, events, actions, and utterances of the female characters featured in the two novels. The evaluation of the texts reveals that  most of the female characters portrayed by Adichie transcend gender limitations as they reinvent themselves. By implication, Adiche  characterised females in these novels as playing roles that are socially constructed as masculine such as strength, bravery, intelligence,  freedom and breadwinning. Some of these characters play such roles in addition to the stressful tasks of motherhood. In line with the  tenets of Womanism, the female characters in the novels are accommodationists, not separatists: they like men and children and  collaborate with fellow women to achieve their dreams.