‘Wonder Women\': Towards a Feminization of Heroism in the African Fiction: A Study of the Heroines in Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen and Sembene Ousmane's God's Bits of Wood

Abstract

Feminism, especially the womanist brand, has been a very popular critical tool that
most critics, men and women alike, have employed in their critical appraisal of African literary works. This is decidedly a very fertile area of contemporary scholarship. The emergence of this critical methodology in the African context stems from the perceived relegation of African women to the background, whether at the home front or in the domain of governance in the larger society. Essentially, feminism preaches equality of the sexes and frowns at the domination of women by men.
Paradoxically, African literary works, being products and reflections of the stresses and tensions of the African society, have replicated this scenario. African literature, consequently, is male-dominated. This has and is still engendering reactions from concerned female and male writers who are re-writing the history of the emergent literature, countering and challenging male chauvinism by presenting conscious, active, resilient and courageous female characters in their novels. It is this anti-male domination crusade that has given concreteness to the feminization of heroism in African fiction as exemplified, in this study, by Nigeria's Buchi Emecheta and Senegalese Ousmane Sembene, reflecting in the process, the singleness of purpose of female and male African writers in their collective fight against discrimination against women.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 5 2008: pp. 181-191