Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nwagbara, Uzoechi

Titel

Achebe's Fiction and the Changing Generation of Nigerian Women - Towards a Paradigm Shift in Leadership

Ist Teil von

• Matatu, 2013 (42), p.225-388

Ort / Verlag

Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

ProQuest_Literature Online_英美文学在线

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The universe of Chinua Achebe's fiction is awash with representation of women as 'second-class citizens' (Buchi Emecheta) or 'the second sex' (Simone de Beauvoir). This mode of female representation as well as what womanhood means in Achebe's world is sustained by the logic of patriarchy that owes its existence and pathogenesis to the stereotyped provenance of the traditional African world-view {prima facie phallocentric and hegemonic). This system has spawned a leadership pattern that relegates women to the background. However, Achebe's novels calibrate the rise and fall of patriarchy - the changed colour of his representation of (African) women. From Things Fall Apart (1958) to Anthills of the Savannah (1987), his aesthetic sensibility refracts the cartography of change, a re-shaping of male-dominated leadership structures for democratic leadership. This essay teases out how Achebe represents the empowerment of women through self-discovery (Aristotelian anagnorisis) producing a paradigm shift - the latter a marker of change in radicalizing established canonical practices. This shift is central in re-mapping Africa's male-female dichotomy as well as a potent force in changing African politics. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]