Fragmented psyche and postcolonial feminist construction: A study of Emeka Nwabueze’s The dragon’s funeral and tess Onwueme’s Then she said it

Abstract

This paper focuses on memory fragmentation as a result of gender relations between sexes that leads to trauma. A reading of Emeka Nwabueze’s The Dragon’s Funeral and Tess Onwueme’s Then She Said It reveals that patriarchy plays a negative role on both male and female genders and this places the study to hinge on the assumption that the dramatic world of Nwabueze and Onwueme is a patriarchal constructed society where both male and female genders suffer marginalization and look forward for liberation. This brings to focus the fragmentation of the psyches of both genders as a result of the traumatic experiences which they encounter in the process of patriarchal resistance and subordination. The study uses postcolonial feminism and psychoanalysis as its theoretical standpoint to demonstrate the oppressive nature of patriarchy on both genders which affects their psyches negatively in a society that subordinates women as well as men. It further underscores that the stereotypical perception of both gender acts also reinforces the fragmentation of psyches of women and men, thus revealing the mechanism of gender inequality that results in the fragmentation of the psyches of women and men as human beings who are constructed to speak in silence. The study, however, concludes that forms of patriarchal oppression, exploitation and subordination greatly contribute to the dissociation of the memories of victims of patriarchy and oppression as a result of trauma.