POST FEMINISM IN CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE’S AMERICANA AND HALF OF THE YELLOW SUN
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Globally, the urgency of instituting the poetics of humanism has found easy eloquence in the apparent disparity in the status of men and women in many spheres of life. Indeed, what is known as the patrilineal order within the African society is also a global phenomenon, applying in distinct measures from one culture to the other. Feminists suppose that every (wo)man ought to become part of the struggle for the liberation of womanity.
They also suppose that even men who philosophize the equality of (hu)manity are bound under their moral obligation to reject the domination of one sex by the other. However, while the deeper scrutiny of the disproportions against women pertinently generates the rage which feminism has borne, it is the simplicity in gauging the often indicted inequalities that may have generated more strife than is rational for humanist thinkers.
Therefore, a demand is placed on the possibilities of mediation considering that sex has become a major determinant of the polarization of writers on the feminist question. Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus came with a big bang on the patriarchal question.
Nonetheless, the two succeeding novels, Half of A Yellow Sun and Americanah, have implicated a profuse characterization of women not exactly as being oppressed by man but indeed often browbeaten by their own self delusion. On their merit, these works are infused with purposive literary ingredients, justifying the ingenuity of a master (mistress) storyteller for which Achebe attests, on the front cover of Half of A Yellow Sun, that Adichie came as a writer that was fully made.
It is perhaps in riding at this echelon that the consciousness of the key conflicts of African literary engagement is ostensibly implicated in the expediency which precipitates the discourse of her satiric intentions in works easily adjudged to be feminist.
There are visible suggestions that the polarization of critics as well as creative writers on the basis of gender is arraigned with a purposed satire in the portrayal of the characters in both novels of Adichie under study here.
Abrams and Harpham recognize the adoption of formal and informal satires in works of literature, and they proceed in explicating variants of these two major classifications of satire whose brands are associated with their practitioners’ identity – Juvenalian satire by Juvenel, Mennipean satire by Mennipus, Horatian satire by Horace and Varronian satire by Varro (352- 355).
These are Roman and Greek philosophers who adopted the satiric mode in projecting their viewpoints, or in other contexts, by rejecting certain perceived aberrations which had assumed the status of conventional practices in their societies. In validating such goals of literary engagement among these classics, Cuddon draws his instances of satiric intentions from the works of Ben Johnson, Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.
Cuddon emphasizes that “the satirist is a kind of self-appointed guardian of standards, and ideals; of moral and aesthetic values” (632). Therefore, in engaging satire in this discussion, it is imperative to appraise how Adichie’s themes convey the deprecation of cultural ideals as well as the morality they emphasize.
The Juvenalian satire is seen in Adichie’s portrayal of delusion, employed to full effect in the depiction of the female characters in Americanah. Also, soon after the story begins in Half of A Yellow Sun, the gathering of intellectuals at Odenigbo’s residence projects how the Mennipean satire evokes the ridiculous attitudes of these characters. Both novels, Half of A Yellow Sun and Americanah are replete with the derisive hypocrisy which is known of the Horatian satire.
Again, Abram and Harpham identify with satires as “an accidental element” (353) within other thematic preoccupations. Visibly, the adoption of satire is effectual in these two novels, providing the required comic relief within the exploration of the Nigeria-Biafra War in Half of A Yellow Sun and the engagement with class trepidations and racist battles in Americanah.
But most intuitively, they both evoke the appraisal of modes of female writing that mediate the fumes of gender ardor within the corpus of African feminism(s).
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The fact that Adichie patronizes Achebe’s cultural inquisition gives warrant to the conjecture that the heat of the feminist nudge might as well become aberrant with her desire to build upon and sustain the acceptance of the uniqueness of traditional Igbo values. Simply, one locates how the several shades of irony that exude in the texts become analogous to the artistic density employed as romantic irony.
Gary Handwerk views such craft as a model construction of literary history that comes “retrospectively and polemically” (206). There are logical suggestions that certain feminist ideals are upturned in such seeming modesty that the intention sounds quite covert. It is to this regard that the study is based on post feminism in chimamanda’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main aim of the study is to determine post feminism in chimamanda’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun. Other specific objectives of the study include;
to identify the post feminism issues in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun.
to examine how the post feminism issues was addressed in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun.
to determine the approaches to post feminism issues in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What are the post feminism issues in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun?
How the post feminism issues addressed in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies was’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun?
What is the approach to post feminism issues in chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s Americanah and Half of the yellow sun?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study on post feminism in chimamanda’s American and Half of the yellow sun will throw more light on how the issue of feminism was addressed in chimamanda’s American and Half of the yellow sun. The study will explore the various approaches used in the two novels to curb the issue of feminism.
The study will also serve as a repository of information to other researchers that desire to carry out similar research on the above topic. Finally the study will contribute to the body of the existing literature on post feminism in chimamanda’s American and Half of the yellow sun.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study will focus only on the post feminism in chimamanda’s American and Half of the yellow sun
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
FEMINISM: Feminism is a range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies that aim to define, establish, and achieve the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.
POST-FEMINISM: The term post feminism is used to describe reactions against contradictions and absences in feminism, especially second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism. The term post feminism is sometimes confused with subsequent feminisms such as 4th wave-feminism, and “women of color feminism
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