0 E [E 0] S MIT HAN C FEMALE SUBJECTIVITIES IN AFRICAN LITERATURE Smith and Ce [ed.] II�,� ,, '\ \\�• .,. ,b·'I} -­ '''''''' om.,;-.... FEMALE SUBJECTIVITIES -in African Literature Smith and Ce (Ed.) ©African Library of Critical Writing Print Edition ISBN: 978-9-7837-0362-9 All rights reserved, which include the rights of reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means whether electronic or recording except as provided by International copyright law. For information address: Progeny (Press) International Attn: African Books Network 9 Handel Str. AI EBS Nigeria WA Email: [email protected] Marketing and Distribution in the US, UK, Europe, N. America (Canada), and Commonwealth countries by African Books Collective Ltd. PO Box 721 Oxford OXI 9EN United Kingdom Email: [email protected] Contents Introduction 7 Chapter 1 Silencing the Abusers 9 Chapter 2 Subjectivity in the 'Eye' of Morrison 26 Chapter 3 Rotimi's Drama and the Gender Issue 50 Chapter 4 Rethinking the African Woman's Identity 70 Chapter 5 The Conflicts of Fall and Osammor 88 Chapter 6 The Women of Ousmane and Dlamini 101 Chapter 7 Female Subjectivity in Achebe's Novels 116 Chapter 8 Female Sexuality in 8essora's Novel 138 Chapter 9 Enekwe's Feminine Archetypes 154 Chapter 10 Women, Race and Liberation 165 Notes and Bibliography 6 Introduction The New Female Subjectivitie� AT some point in the so called advancement in human civihsation the patrilineal principle overthrew the pristine divine feminine taking precedence over the matrilineal in all civil, religious, political and cultural institutions. Socio-economic structures also became pattemed to privilege the phallocentric order. Tbrough western civilization women have confronted what they perceive to be male domination of affairs in human society where it had seemed that facets of the society must conform to the male order before they are adjudged to be correct. The ensuing political strategy is to institute hierarchies that maintain and perpetuate male ascendancy and hegemony over the female. Under this asynunetrical terrain, the definition of individual subjectivity is executed essentially through the sieve of self and the other. A sexist and gender-specific monad in human existence has reduced individuality and refracted life and existence through gender politics and paradigms in the rigidity of maleness and femaleness without appreciating the complementarity of the two sexes. In literature the ambiguous portraiture of female characters by some male writers and the phallic nature of men's writings have proved a matter of concern to female writers in Africa. For decades within African writing the issue of silencing was interrogated particularly as it addressed the muting and marginalisation of black women by male writers and the script of patriarchy which men follow. In this series we continue the literary and dramatic tradition of feminist concern for women's issues, and we review novels, plays and poetry which demonstrate a commitment to exploring the challenges facing modern women in changing times and excerpting the issues of gender, feminism, identity, race, history, national and international politics specifically as they affect women. Female Subjectivities collectively answers the need to question and adumbrate the possibilities of literary revisions, showing what it would mean to revise even the Feminist psychoanalyst in a discourse on the subjectivity of women of colour. Smith andCe 8 Chapter 1 Silencing the Abusers DShober FOR decades the issue of silencing has been interrogated within African writing particularly as it addresses the muting and marginalization of black women by male African writers and the script of patriarchy which they follow. Chinua Achebe, heralded as the father of African literature, and renowned for his historical African novels as well as his textual and discursive criticisms of colonialism, was earlier taken to task by female critics such as Rosa Ure Mezu and Andrea Powell for his de­ centralization of women as portrayed as portrayed within the African tribal community. Powell argues that Achebe's "historical novels consistently side-line the place of the postcolonial woman in order to focus on postcolonial manhood" (167). Achebe explores the hierarchy of gendered positions and the potency of African masculinity through Okonkwo the male protagonist of Things Fall Apart who affIrms that "[no] matter how prosperous a man [is], if he [is] unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his woman) he [is] not really a man" (53). In many instances this control is exerted by physical violence resulting in his three wives living "in perpetual fear of his fiery temper" (13). Nor are the women in his two historical texts Things Fall Apart or Arrow of God ever able to fmd to relief or release from the aggressive subjugation under which they live. Yet in his fifth novel Anthills of the Savannah, Achebe does create a transformed female character. Beatrice is an empowered individual whose voice is that of prophetess and her role likened to a goddess (105). As Emezue underscores: "Of all the characters in the novel she understands at the end the importance of living a purposeful life" (250) and "recognizes the real meaning of human existence" (251), her voice radiates strength and vision to her ravaged community. But not all male African writers create such substantial, autonomous female characters. Christine Obbo writes that "the need to control women has always been an important part of male success in African societies" (4), and literature, ever mimetic of reality has authentically captured this. Over the years, many black African women writers have been creatively correcting this notion of black African permissible aggressive dominance. Their narrative resistance to patriarchal subjugation and silencing has enabled them to craft female characters who voice their own autonomous, self-governing destiny. Susan Arndt in her book The Dynamics of African Feminism notes that "African feminists hope to sensitize men to the discrimination which women experience due to the patriarchal structures of their societies as well as the behavior of individual men ... [and] count on men's fundamental ability to free themselves from 10 discriminatory behavior " (73). But she warns that "men who disappoint this trust and are impervious to the emancipator endeavors of the women or even stand in their way are regarded as enemies against whom war must be declared" (73). Ogundipe-Leslie articulated at the fIrst Women In Nigeria conference that "men become enemies when they seek to retard, even block, these necessary historical changes for selfIsh interests in power, when they claim 'culture and heritage' as if human societies are not constructed by human beings, when they plead and laugh about the 'natural and enduring inferiority of women'" (82). Ama Ata Aidoo declares that "[u]nless a particular writer commits his or her energies, actively, to exposing the sexist tragedy of women's history; protesting the ongoing degradation of women; celebrating their physical and intellectual capabilities, and above all, unfolding a revolutionary vision of the role [of women],' he or she cannot be pronounced a feminist" (33). The question may be asked how black African men have blocked or denied black women a signifIcant place within, at least, literary representation. As at a least some of their novels reflect, seminal black African male writers have stereotyped at best or silenced at worst their female characters. Sindiwe Magona challenges this silencing and misrepresentation in her appeal to other black women writers: "My beloved sisters, our men have not loved us enough, they have not honoured us enough; they have not respected us enough to make us equal partners. Thus, we have no voice. In the New Millennium, let us wait no 11