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A Study of Novels by Buchi Emecheta and Tsitsi Dangarembga

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A Study of Novels by Buchi Emecheta and Tsitsi Dangarembga UNIVERSITE CHEIKH ANTA DIOP DE DAKAR FACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES Ecole Doctorale ARCIV Formation Doctorale: Etudes Anglophones et Comparées Spécialité: Etudes Africaines et Postcoloniales THESE DE DOCTORAT Soutenue: le 03 Avril 2017 Pour obtenir le grade de Docteur ès Lettres de l’UniversitéCheikh Anta Diop de Dakar Women in African Women’s Writings: A Study of Novels by Buchi Emecheta and Tsitsi Dangarembga. Présentée par: Sous la supervision de: Mansour GUEYE M. Gorgui DIENG, Professeur Titulaire, UCAD JURY: Président: M. Oumar NDONGO, Professeur Titulaire, FLSH, UCAD Rapporteur: M. Abdou NGOM, Maître de conférences, FLSH, UCAD M. Gorgui DIENG, Professeur Titulaire, FLSH, UCAD M. Paul DIAKITE, Professeur Titulaire, Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako (ULSHB) 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My acknowledgements go first to Professor Gorgui DIENG. As a postgraduate student majored in African Studies, I am indebted to him for his commitment to his field and his willingness to foster me to becoming an accomplished researcher. Indeed, if this work has come to fruition, it is mainly because of him, for without his initial encouragements and guidance this thesis would not have probably been written. A special acknowledgement goes to Pr. Abdou NGOM, for his proficiency and availability, I really appreciate it all. My acknowledgement also reaches all the African and Postcolonial Studies Laboratory lecturers: Pr. Santiago Valez, Dr. Pape DIOP, Dr. Aliou SOW, Dr. Abdoulaye DIONE, Dr. Saliou DIONE, to name but a few, not to mention the Head of the English Department, Dr. Alioune Badara KANDJI, and all the lecturers, Dr Ousmane SENE, Pr. Bathie SAMB, Pr. NDONGO, especially, Pr. Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba DIENG and Dr. Yankhoba SEYDI for always encouraging me. My acknowledgements also go to all the postgraduate students of the Laboratory, particularly, those with whom I exchanged on seminars conducted by Pr. DIENG during our pre-doctoral classes. It was very constructive for our development as budding researchers. My deepest gratitude goes to my parents and my beloved wife. Acknowledgements are due to my brother, El Hadj Ousmane GUEYE, a former student of the English Department, for proofreading this work, advising me and providing materials. A special acknowledgement goes to my brother-in-law, M. Abdou GUEYE, former senior teacher at the British-Senegalese Institute, who proofread this work and encouraged me. This is an opportunity too to thank M. Ciré DIAKHATE and a former lecturer of the English department, Dr. El Hadji MBENGUE, who volunteered to proofread my work. It was a real privilege, indeed. One way or another, I am indebted to all those with whom I have worked, whether as colleagues or resourceful people that I cannot name for their direct collaboration and contribution to the realization of this project. God bless you! 2 DEDICATION TO MY FAMILY, TO MY PARENTS, FRIENDS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS Résumé: La femme, à travers le monde, est sous l’emprise de divers fléaux qui vont de la discrimination sexiste, au chauvinisme de l’homme et à la violence physique. A la lumière de cela, il urge de se pencher sur le rôle des chercheurs et intellectuels face à cette réalité. C’est dans ce sens qu’il faut comprendre l’ostracisme des femmes écrivains sur le plan littéraire. Cependant, grâce à leur engagement, certaines s’appuient sur le féminisme comme mode propre d’écriture afin de briser les mythes qui empêchent leur émancipation en tant qu’individus. Les deux femmes écrivains à l’étude, Buchi Emecheta et Tsitsi Dangarembga, s’inspirent profondément de la critique du courant littéraire 3 féministe dans leurs œuvres. Sous ce rapport, elles axent leurs romans sur leur propre contexte culturel africain et sur le milieu pour passer en revue les aspects sociaux qui assujettissent la femme, et ainsi lancer une offensive contre cette pratique. A travers la représentation de la femme, elles mettent en exergue le patriarcat, qui avec les cultures contraignantes et la colonisation compromettent sa promotion. Ceci illustre leur engagement dans le combat pour la justice sociale à l’égard de la femme, avec une plus grande portée et profondeur dans l’analyse, sans préjugés sexistes. Les romans à l’étude sont thématiquement liés, puisque les deux auteurs fondent leurs intrigues sur le triptyque, genre, race et classe, des catégories discriminatoires qui rebondissent dans l’œuvre littéraire des femmes écrivains et qui empêchent généralement le développement de la gente féminine, de l’enfance à l’âge adulte. L’asservissement de la femme est inéluctable, car la tradition et la colonisation sont dans ce cadre liées. Etant donné que la femme est victime de préjudices, les personnages qu’Emecheta et Dangarembga dépeignent dans leurs ouvrages déploient des moyens de survie pour une société plus juste. Ce qui donne une lueur d’espoir à leur fiction, qui peut être placée dans la catégorie de romans d’apprentissage et/ou de développement. Ainsi, leur ingéniosité à adapter la tradition féministe courante au contexte africain en se basant sur les théories de déconstruction et de construction dans une approche inclusive entre les deux sexes, les place toutes deux comme écrivains humanistes socialement engagées. Mots clés: colonisation – engagement -féministe - justice sociale- tradition Abstract : Women, throughout the world, are under the sway of various scourges that range from gender-based discrimination, male chauvinism to physical violence. In the light of this, one needs to ask the role scholars and intellectuals play to change this reality. It is from this perspective we should understand the ostracism of women writers from the literary field. However, thanks to their commitment, some of them use the feminist literary tradition as a writing strategy designed to dismantle the myths that hamper their emancipation as individuals. 4 The two women writers concerned in this study, Buchi Emecheta and Tsitsi Dangarembga, dig deep in mainstream feminist literary criticism in their novels. In that respect, they base their work on their own African cultural context and respective countries to investigate the social aspects of women’s subjugation, and mount a protest against it. Through female characterization, they put under the critical spotlight patriarchy with encroaching cultures and colonization that compromise women’s promotion. This illustrates their commitment to women’s fight for social justice, with greater scope and in-depth analysis, regardless of gender-based obstacles. The novels studied here are discursively intertwined, as the two women writers build their female protagonists’ own stories around the triptych that rebounds in women’s writings, gender, race and class, discriminatory categories that impede their growth from childhood to womanhood. Their entrapment is unquestioned because tradition and colonization collude to subjugate them. Since women are victims of prejudices, the female characters Emecheta and Dangarembga depict in their works design survival strategies to outsmart social injustice for a better world. Such strategies give some measure of optimism to their fiction, which can be labeled as apprenticeship and/or development novels. Thus, their ingenuity to adapt mainstreaming feminist tradition to their own African context based on deconstructionist and constructionist theories through an inclusive approach to the two sexes, hails them both as humanistic and socially committed writers. Key words: tradition- colonization- social justice- commitment- feminist 5 CONTENTS Introduction…….. ……………………………………………………………1 Chapter one: The Socio-Cultural Heritage………………...……….……….20 I.1The sacredness of traditional beliefs……………….……..………..…21 I.2 The weights of patriarchy on female individuals……………………36 I.3 Women’s impeding ordeals ……….………….………………..……52 Chapter two: Women in the Economic Context…………….…….……..….83 II.1 Poverty and the impact of money…………………………………...84 II.2 Illiteracy and personal fulfillment…………...……..……………...106 II.3 Survival strategies………..………………………...………………126 Chapter three: Education and Migration as Pathways to Social Mobility………………………………………………………………….…...148 III.1 School as a medium for a better life……………...………….……149 III.2 Self-displacement and personal sacrifices…………………..…….171 III.3 Illusion and predicaments…………...…………………………….191 6 Chapter four: The Construction of Females’ Self-identity……………….210 IV.1 Personhood and tolerance…………..………..…………….……..213 IV.2 The impact of parental love on progenies………………..…….....233 IV.3 Friendship and group-solidarity…………….………….…...…….262 Chapter five: Women’s Hegemony within Destructive Powers…………..288 V.1 The quest for emancipation and freedom………………………..…290 V.2 The transitional female protagonist…….………..............................310 V.3 The new African woman…………………………………….……..334 Conclusion……………………………………………………..……………..351 Bibliography…….…………………………………………………………....363 Index………………...……………………………………..…………….375-400 7 Introduction 8 The topic under study addresses women in two African women writers’ novels, Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen, Double Yoke and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not. The choice we make on the two writers is not fortuitous, for, even though they are geographically distant, Emecheta is from Nigeria in West Africa and Dangarembga from Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, there are intersections in their literary works in terms of discourse. They are vivid examples of committed writers whose works are widely acclaimed throughout the world. I
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