A comparative reading of domestic violence against African women in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Bayo Adebowale's Lonely Days

Abstract

Domestic violence is a phenomenon that cuts across races, colours, cultures and continents. It is a societal problem with its consequences reaching far beyond the family. Studies have shown that violence within the family becomes the breeding ground for other social problems such as substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and violent crimes of all types. This paper examines how the phenomenon of domestic violence, in the African milieu, is painted and presented in the African literary productions. We examined the polarized positions taken by the two Nigerian writers, Chinua Achebe and Bayo Adebowale in their novels. Adopting the theory of liberal feminism as our theoretical framework and textual analysis as methodology, the paper found out the concomitant harsh effects of the phenomenon of domestic violence as a common ground between the two writers, but it has also discovered that despite the number of years that existed between the production of the first and the second novel, the state of the phenomenon rather exacerbates on a daily basis. These shall be seen through the comparative analysis of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Bayo Adebowale's Lonely Days (2006).

Keywords: Gender Studies, Liberal Feminism, Comparative, Women and Domestic Violence