REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE MENTAL ILL HEALTH IN THE AFRICAN NOVEL

Abstract

This study examines the depiction of female mental ill health in selected African novels. We intend to explore some causes and manifestations of, as well as responses to women’s emotional disorders. Through the prism of psychoanalytical feminism, our paper identifies those socio-cultural and environmental factors that are drivers of female mental ailments as represented in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter and Scarlet Song, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, Chris Abani’s Becoming Abigail, Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at Point Zero, and Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift. A close reading of these selected African novels reveals that the predominantly patriarchal nature of many African cultures enable and promote gender relationships that act as stressors to women’s psychological welfare. That this paper focuses on an often ignored or glossed over, but very important, aspect of African women’s existential reality is one of its strengths. It concludes that there is a need to give priority attention to the festering epidemic of female mental illness in African societies in order to attain more holistic outcomes for individual, gender and social well-being.KEYWORDS: Female Mental Health, African Novel, Medical Humanities, Psychoanalytic Feminism.