The Tragedy of The Girl-Child: A Feminist Reading of Ngozi Omeje’s The Conquered Maiden and Amma Darko’s Faceless

Abstract

Author(s): Ajidahun, Clement Olujide | Abstract: This paper is a critical interrogation of Ngozi Omeje’s The Conquered Maiden and Amma Darko’s Faceless from the feminist ideological perspective. While Ngozi Omeje looks at the place of the girl-child from the Igbo’s cultural world view using the platform of the theater, Amma Darko explores the predicament and the subjugation of the girl-child from the Ghanaian socio-cultural perspective using the novel as her medium. This paper examines the predicaments and the socio-cultural prejudice against the girl-child in the patriarchal society of Nigeria and in matriarchal Ghanaian society. The theoretical framework of the paper is based on the feminist sociological theory that re-examines and compares the treatment of women vis-a-vis men in society. This theory also evaluates issues of bias, prejudice and discrimination against women, and by implication the girl-child, to determine whether or not women have been fairly or justly treated in society. This paper establishes, based on visual and non-visual signifiers in the texts, that the girl-child is a victim of discrimination in both Nigerian and Ghanaian societies. Both texts confirm the hostility of society towards the girl-child, and its preference for the men who are seen to be more reliable and dependable, and who are believed to be the carriers and preservers of the seed of progeny. This paper analyzes the writers’ condemnation of these prejudicial, discriminatory and hostile behavioral attitudes against the girl-child. Both texts are thus interpreted as a biting satire against gender discrimination in African societies.