PATRIARCHY AND OPPRESSION OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN SELECTED BENINESE WOMEN NOVELS

Abstract

Patriarchy is the manifestation and institutionalisation of male dominance over women and children in the family and the larger society. Extensive studies on patriarchy and oppression of the female gender in francophone African female writings have focused on francophone countries like Senegal and Cameroon, with little attention paid to the Republic of Benin. Patriarchy and oppression of female characters in selected Beninese women’s novels were examined with a view to establishing the nature, role and consequences of patriarchal oppression and the strategies adopted by the female characters to counter it.

The study adopted Alice Walker and Mary Kolawole’s versions of Womanism, which distinguishes the struggle for gender equality as embarked upon by women of colour and the peculiar experience of the African woman. Six post-independence Beninese novels by three female writers were purposively selected based on their converging motifs. These were Modukpè le rêve brisé (MLRB) and Enfant d’Autrui, Fille de Personne (EDFP) by Adélaïde Fassinou, La Vengeance de L’Albinos (LVDL) and Le Crépuscule de L’Homme (LCDL) by Flore Hazoumé, L’Engrenage (LE) and L’Univers Infernal (LUI) by Hortense Mayaba. Texts were subjected to close reading and textual analysis.

The characters have defined roles and relationships as husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and lovers. This binary relationship engenders various forms of oppression such as child abuse, wife battery, rape and wife-prostitution. In order to cope with male oppression, the female characters adopted passive and active strategies. The passive strategies are submission, mothering, sisterhood and forgiveness, while the active strategies involve questioning of patriarchal laws, divorce, and public protest. The passive strategies are portrayed by Julienne’s refusal to challenge male authority as reflected in LVDL and Ngoné’s forgiving strategy as portrayed in LUI. Mothering is another passive strategy whereby female characters invested all their love on their children as a palliative for lack of marital love. Cica and Emma, rivals in EDFP, ended their intra-gender conflict by adopting the strategy of sisterhood. Female characters who adopted the active strategies separated physically from their husbands without divorcing them, as portrayed in the case of Modukpè’s mother in MLRB and that of Ananou in EDFP. Emilienne in LCDL and Modukpè in MLRB from within query patriarchal laws that encourage female subjugation. Mado’s case in LVDL is a total desertion of her home. Women in LE confronted patriarchal institution through public protest. In all the texts, the active strategies proved more successful in combating patriarchal oppression as the female protagonists were able to assert themselves and claim their rights.

The novels show that the nature of patriarchy and oppression of the female gender is domestic, perpetuates female subjugation and consequently elicits reactions from the women. Female characters use strategies which enabled them to counteract oppression, assert themselves and claim their rights.