COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EMECHETA’SSECONDCLASS CITIZEN AND NWAPA’S EFURU
ABSTRACT
This study undertakes a comparative analysis of the works of two Nigerian female novelists: Buchi Emecheta and Flora Nwapa, it looks at the contemporary African society which is dominated by men.Little or no recognition is given to women thus they have been oppressed, depressed, subjected and neglected. In this regards African female writers like Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariama Ba, Zaynab Alkali among others fought on behalf of African women through their works by giving them significant roleswhich portray women as a virtue and instrument of honour in the Africa society.
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE:
- Introduction
1.1 Comparative analysis and intertextuality
1.2 Aims and Objectives
1.3 Scope and limitation of the study
1.4 Justification of the study
1.5 Methodology
1.6 Biography of Buchi Emecheta
1.7 Biography of Flora Nwapa
CHAPTER TWO:
- Introduction
2.1 Literature Review
2.1.1 A critique of Buchi Emecheta
2.1.2 A critique of Flora Nwapa
2.2 Buchi Emecheta and Flora Nwapa as a liberal feminist
CHAPTER THREE:
- Introduction
3.1 Comparative analysis of Emecheta’s Second Class Citizenand Nwapa’s Efuru
CHAPTER FOUR:
- Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
4.1 Summary
4.2 Conclusion
4.3 Recommendation
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
Emecheta and Nwapa are earliest feminist writers, whose works serve as the starting point for the independence and freedom of African women in general. They wrote novels about the struggles of African women in a contemporary African society and portray the condition of women in the traditional African setting. Their works promote equality for men and women in political, economic, educational, traditional and social spheres. They believe that women are oppressed due to their sex based on the dominant ideology of patriarchy.
Patriarchy literally means rule by men or by paternal right.It is a situation whereby women are ruled or controlled by men, giving power and importance to men.
Were Nigeria and Africa oppressively masculinity? The answer is “yes” Ghana was known to have some matrilineal society such as Akans; but Nigeria’s traditional culture, Muslim as well as non-Muslim had been masculine – based even before the advent of the white man. The source, nature and extent of female subordination and oppression have constituted a vexed problem in African literary debates. Writers such as Ama Ata Aidoo of Ghana and late Flora Nwapa of Nigeria insisted that the image of the helpless, dependent, unproductive African women was once ushered in by European imperialists whose women lived that way. On the other hand, the Nigeria-born, expatriate writer Buchi Emecheta, along with other critics, maintain that African women were traditionally subordinated to sexist cultural mores.
