GENDER DISCOURSE SHIFT AND INTRA-GENDER CONFLICTS IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN NOVELS

Abstract

Gender discourse in African novels has hitherto been characterised by subjective representations of women by some African male writers and rejoinders from their female counterparts. However, African novelists have been budging from the one-sided narrative of inter-gender conflicts to multifaceted gender representations, culminating in the new trends and shift in gender discourse in the African novels. This shift has attracted little scholarly attention. Gender discourse in contemporary African novels was examined, with a view to establishing patterns of the paradigm shift. Womanism, which emphasises cooperation, compassion and inter-relationship between sexes, and Marxist-feminism that upholds subversion of social stratification served as the framework. Eight novels were purposively selected from four regions of Africa based on their thematisation of gender issues by male and female authors from each region. The novels were Naguib Mahfouz’s (male) Palace Walk (Palace) and Ahlem Mosteghanemi’s (female) The Bridges of Constantine (Bridges) – North Africa; Chika Unigwe’s (female) The Night Dancer (Dancer) and Daniel Mengara’s (male) Mema (Mema) - West Africa; Njabulo Ndebele’s (male) The Cry of Winnie Mandela (Winnie) and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s (female) The Book of Not (The Book) - Southern Africa; Violet Barungi’s (female) Cassandra (Cassandra) and Biyavanga Wainaina’s (male) One Day I Will Write About This Place (Place) – East Africa. The novels were subjected to literary criticism. Gender boundaries are collapsing in contemporary African novels through the re-examination of patriarchy and polygamy by male and female novelists respectively. Dancer and Winnie address the issue of marital separation through divorce or death and how patriarchal society perceives single motherhood and widowhood. The characterisation of Ezi in Dancer and Winnie in Winnie reveals the challenges of societal rejection, deprivation of access to husbands’ property which women face following separation from their husbands. Palace shows empathy for the suffering, marginalisation and subjugation of the female characters. Mahfouz reveals that culture and religion are often used by the patriarchal society to set the agenda of male dominance in North Africa. Bridges portrays the female protagonist as having a questionable character, thus giving an antithetical portrayal of the female protagonist from the same region. Intra-gender and inter-gender conflicts abound in Cassandra and Dancer respectively, as portrayed in the conflict between mother and daughter in Dancer, while the conflict between step-mother and step-son in Cassandra is a new form of inter-gender conflict in African novel. Mema, The Book, Bridges and Winnie present women characters that project Marxist-feminist ideology of subversion of social stratification in terms of self-confidence and self expression in matters that affect women, their sexual conscription and gender perception. Mema and Place depict gender shift with male authors appreciating their respective cherished female characters – mothers. Contemporary African novelists are re-constructing the gender affiliations of their protagonists beyond gender rivalry in their thematics, characterisation and narrative patterns. This foregrounds the viewpoint that African novelists are gravitating towards gender discourse shift in their works.