A Feminist Reading Of Mobolaji Adenubi’s Empty Arms And Hilary Rouse-amadi’s Amina

African writers have pre-occupied themselves with the happenings in the society. Thus, thematic focus has always been on societal ills, one of which is female oppression. This study examines the feminist perspectives in Hilary Rouse-Amadi’s Amina and Mobolaji Adenubi’s Empty Arms. The sociological approach was adopted, which enabled a better judgment of the characters, as presented by the writers.

This research work has shown how Hilary Rouse-Amadi and Mobolaji Adenubi have raised the female consciousness to withstand the grains of patriarchy. The work also examines what feminism is, and the changes that have taken place in the portrayal of women in the society. 

In conclusion, this work is able to portray a vivid description of gender inequality, its adverse effect on women and the steps taken to correct it.

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER THREE

3.1.3 THE CHANGE IN A WOMAN’S STATUS AFTER

3.2 GENDER PORTRAYAL IN HILARY ROUSE-AMADI’S 

3.3 CULTURAL FEMINISM IN HILARY ROUSE-AMADI’S 

CHAPTER FOUR

4.1 FEMINIST ISSUES IN MOBOLAJI ADENUBI’S

4.3 LIBERAL, RADICAL AND HUMANIST FEMINISMS IN  

CHAPTER FIVE

         In the society, women are always reminded of their roles as wives and mothers in such derogatory manners. They are saddled with the responsibilities of producing, nurturing children and taking care of the home. Over the years however, women have embarked on a struggle aimed at affirming their identities, while at the same time, doing all they can to transform the societal, cultural or traditional perceptions of their gender. Women are striving very hard to change these perceptions through education and by creating awareness.

        Female writers have helped greatly by making the female characters in their works more prominent. Their aim is to have female characters that are powerful and outspoken. This is because women in most male writings are often portrayed as subservient and dull. This is evident in some works of male writers like Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka among others, in whose works female characters are present, only to serve the image of African manhood, especially in Things Fall Apart and The Trials of Brother Jero respectively.

       Eventually, this female silence was broken by Flora Nwapa in 1966, when she published her first novel, Efuru, which served as a kind of inspiration to other female writers. These women used literature to explain the state of their societies, either good or bad. They also use literature to explain the importance of female existence in the society. Some of these feminist witers include: Zaynab Alkali, Buchi Emecheta, Mobolaji Adenubi and Hilary Rouse-Amadi.

        It has been established by critics that there are cultural practices that are oppressive to women. Such critics believe that culture is a social construct, a way of subordinating the female gender, to make the male gender dominant. Lewis (1995), as cited in Mama (1997) states that:

                 …African cultural practices have been weapons for enforcing

        women’s obedience …culture has been seen as an edifice of   

        unchanging institutions, traditions and identities…

Also, Meena (1989), as cited in Walker (1991) says ‘women oppression has been located in some practices in traditional African societies’. She further states that 'in the literary world, fictions of undiluted African culture bolster patriarchal goals and desires, while perpetuating the servitude of women’.   It is important to examine some cultural practices that are oppressive to women because these form parts of the themes in the selected texts for the study, which are Mobolaji Adenubi’s Empty Arms and Hilary Rouse-Amadi’s Amina.

       One of the cultural practices in Nigeria is the issue of bride price. In some parts of the country, a lady’s bride price is inflated in such a way that it would seem the bride is being sold. Although some African feminists do not see any evil in this practice, some feminist authors have expressed their displeasure, through characters in their works. Some of these writers include Buchi Emecheta in The Bride Price, Hilary Rouse-Amadi in Amina, Mobolaji Adenubi in Empty Arms among others. These writers try to prove that a female child is not a commodity. In Empty Arms, Auntie Pat refused to accept a bride price from Jide. She informed Mrs. Lawal that she was not selling off her niece. Mrs. Lawal also commented:

    

               …Your Nike is being given away practically. Don’t

                   we know the amount of money usually demanded 

                   of the groom’s families by the bride’s families as 

                   payment?

In The Bride Price, Akunna was allowed to stay on in school until she completes standard six after her father’s death because according to the narrator, ‘the longer she stays in school, the higher the bride price that is expected on her’.

Also, in Amina, Amina could not further her education because her father said it was time for her to get married. Amina was so sad that she asks her mother:

                       Why was I sent to school? 

                       Was it a mere excuse 

                        To swell the bride price?

                        Is money all the honour

                        That my laboured father seeks? 

 

In some families, a female child is seen as an avenue of getting money. Such girls are usually married off at tender ages, sometimes against their will. Some of them who have the courage to protest against such arrangements are usually cursed by families and rejected by the society. Apart from being literally sold off by her family, the husband also sees her as one of his possessions, an object he has bought with a huge amount of his money and could treat as he pleases. Such wives are often subjected to different kinds of marital oppression and they are expected to take everything in good faith. Hilary Rouse-Amadi points this out in Amina. According to Amina:

                         It seems we are marketable objects

  To be disposed off with speed 

  To the highest bidder and when 

 We have been sold into marriage, 

  It seems we are expected to sit

 Meekly in the houses of our lords

 Nursing our thoughts and feelings

 Within the enforced privacy 

 Of a silence we have never asked for…

There is also female subjection to oppression in widowhood. In some parts of Nigeria, especially in the Eastern parts, a widow is compelled to mourn her husband officially, by going through some dehumanizing rituals. In these parts of Nigeria, a widow mourns her husband by having the hairy parts of her body shaved. After that, she is forced to drink the water that was used in bathing her dead husband. She then mourns her husband by wailing publicly at the top of her voice for days. According to Nzewi (1931): 

    death that a woman begins to go through the rituals

    associated with widowhood.

While interviewing widows, a widow a widow revealed to Nzewi (1931 :

     back of the house. They first of all put their left and 

     right fingers into my mouth… They gave me food in a 

     broken calabash and fed me with their left 

     and right hands simultaneously… I was required to cry 

      in the morning and at night for four days…

Any widow who refuses to be subjected to this kind of treatment is tagged a witch, she is blamed for her husband’s death, she is exempted from social privileges and she is not allowed to transact in the market.