Analyses of Female Experiences in Two African Short Stories: The Feminist Theory Approach

Abstract

Many African societies are patriarchal, based on the supremacy of the male over the female. According to Mba (2009, p.322), “emancipation of females is one of the greatest achievements of the women’s struggle globally”. As a continent, African culture accords a superior status to the male such that strength, freedom, independence, honour, courage and other positive attributes are ascribed to the male gender, while attributes of weakness, fear, dependence among others are ascribed to the female gender. Crimes of less magnitude are considered as “female” crimes and attract less stiff punishment. The killing of Ezeudu’s first son by Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for example, is described as a female crime. On the nature of the crime, Achebe writes “the crime was of two kinds, male and female, Okonkwo committed the female because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after some years” (p.87). In this paper, the Feminist theory is used to examine the portraiture of females in two short stories by two African female writers. In this article, the family is categorise as a fundamental part of the social life of Africans, it attempts to expose the bias of African culture against the female in favour of the male, and consider how this social reality impacts negatively on the female psyche. The stories reveal that women themselves aggravate the situation by working against themselves. We conclude that female empowerment is a must for all females, and that just as governments are projecting education for all by the year 2020, the women’s movement should also target education for all females by the year 2020, because as the stories reveal, the educated female character fares better in the society than her less literate counterpart.