The Image of Women in Es’kia Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979)

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue X, October 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

The Image of Women in Es’kia Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979)

Abdou Sene
Cheikh Anta Diop University, BP 5005, 10700, Dakar-Fann, Senegal.

Abstract : Many literary texts by African male writers were written in the 1960s and 1970s to decry the governance of African political rulers, a governance based on abuse of power, bribery, self-enrichment and dictatorship, among other vices. African masses who thought that the replacement of the white rulers by indigenous politicians, following the independences, would be mean a new and better governing system, have been simply disillusioned. Among these literary texts is Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979). But, can Chirundu not be also classified among literary texts such as Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel (1962), Onuora Nzekwu’s Highlife for Lizards (1965), Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966) … in which feminists find a sexist perspective of the authors? From a feminist perspective, this article is going to deal with the image of women in Chirundu. Based on culture, sociology and psychology as theories and feminism as literary criticism, this study will firstly deal with the stereotypes about women and then analyze the latter’s victimization.

Keywords: image ; women ; stereotypes ; victimization ; feminism.

I. INTRODUCTION

In the 1960s and 1970s, following the independences, many literary texts by African male writers were produced to denounce the rule of African political leaders. These writers, who hoped that African countries’ political sovereignty would mark the beginning of the improvement of the populations’ social condition, were disappointed by the governing system of the colonizers’ successors. Abuse of power, bribery, self-enrichment and dictatorship, among other vices, have been used as mode of governance by postcolonial African political rulers who also privileged their own interests over the betterment of the masses’ lot. Among the said literary texts are Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters (1965), Madmen and Specialists (1971) and Season of Anomy (1973), Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966), Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Fragments (1970), Yambo Ouloguem’s Bound to Violence (1971), Kofi Awoonor’s This Earth My Brother (1971), Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood (1977), Es’kia Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979), to mention just but a few. Thus, critical works on Chirundu (1979) are often about the corruption of post-independence African political authorities and the betrayal of African people by these authorities.

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