Abstract
This article studies the primal role of female characters in the works of two dramatists separated by time and space and yet convergent in their philosophical portrayal of the woman as an agent of socio-political mutations. It posits that although Bole Butake is a Cameroonian contemporary playwright, he shares convergent views with Percy Bysshe Shelley, an English Romantic poet who also wrote lyrical dramas, in the portrayal of the front role played by female characters in bringing about change to their societies. The article concludes that though separated by culture and historical epochs, both Butake and Shelley are visionary and insightful in using women to solve the socio-political predicaments of their times.
Highlights
This article studies the primal role of female characters in the works of two dramatists separated by time and space and yet convergent in their philosophical portrayal of the woman as an agent of socio-political mutations
“Can man be free if woman be a slave?” That is the rhetorical question Percy Bysshe Shelley poses in The Revolt of Islam (II, XLIII, 1)
This article, posits that Bole Butake is the Cameroonian Percy Bysshe Shelley of female liberation of the society from socio-political misdemeanour. It stresses that Bole Butake is a Cameroonian contemporary playwright, he shares convergent views with Percy Bysshe Shelley, an English Romantic poet, who wrote lyrical dramas, in the front role played by female characters in bringing about change to their societies
Summary
“Can man be free if woman be a slave?” That is the rhetorical question Percy Bysshe Shelley poses in The Revolt of Islam (II, XLIII, 1). Oseni Taiwo Afisi, in Power and Womanhood in Africa: An Introductory Evaluation, quotes Bulkachuwa (1996: 15) as saying that: In many areas women are still regarded as chattels to be inherited, they are given no formal education...given out in marriage at an early age They are forever under the control of either their husbands or male relatives...they cannot inherit or own property, nor can they participate fully in public life and the decision-making process within their immediate community (235). Even if this traditional role of the woman is fast changing and women have become more and more involved in decision-making, the quotation above brings to sharp focus the relegation of the woman to the background in matters of socio-political mutation in literary history. From British literary history, across the oceans to African literary discourse, the same female relegation in effecting and affecting socio-political change is patent and unquestionable
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