Understanding Gender roles in African Literature

In our paper, we are going to examine what the allocated responsibilities and duties to either men or women meant to some specific African societies as narrated in Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart and Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. The Significance of gender- centered roles in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Through gender- centered roles, Chinua Achebe shows how culture is deeply embedded in enculturation. Also, through the applicable attitudes around gender constructs, labor divisions and relationships between women and men of Umuofia, the present gender roles in the community are defined (Wickingson 5). These sections also bring out the biological, cultural, historical, institutional and situational definitions. In Nigeria where the writer hails, women are understood through the feministic gender.

The Main character gender and how it affects him and his culture in things fall apart Okonkwo is a representation of the chauvinistic thinking that characterizes African men who contend that women are only useful at home which is the plight of most of the Igbo women. The destruction of Igbo society occurs when men insist on displaying virility to women as a way of stamping supremacy against them (11) whereby: Okonkwo hangs himself for fear of not being called a woman towards the white people and his clan. Once Okonkwo as a hero of Umuofia and woman oppressor loses his life, it immediately indicates the destruction of the Igbo society. Through Okonkwo, women are regarded as weak, and therefore he dedicates his time to fight them and those who exhibit their characteristics like his son Nwoye and appreciate those who portray masculine traits like his daughter Ezimna despite her being a lady.

Main characters’ gender and how it affects them and their cultures in the Joys of Motherhood Emecheta, Buchi uses the main character, Nnu Ego, a woman to portray the negative and positive results of transformation on women coupled as well by their imprisonment by culture, change, and tradition. Through Nnu, Emecheta highlights the influences of tradition, establishing gender boundaries on the one hand and on the other, standards that women must adhere to be respected and fulfilled. However, Nnu's condition worsened with the advent of colonization making her life even worse and one of endless tribulations (36). WORKS CITED Barfi Zahara, Hamedreza Kohzadi & Fatemeh Azizmohammadi. " A study of Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood in the light of Chandra Talpade Mohanty: A Postcolonial Feminist Theory.