Date of Award
1-1-2023
Thesis Type
masters
Document Type
Thesis (Restricted Access)
Divisions
fac_med
Department
Department of English
Institution
Universiti Malaya
Abstract
The present contemporary third generation Nigerian narratives redefine the African woman by portraying the gendered experiences of Nigerian women in opposition to masculinist dominance and oppressive patriarchal norms. Third generation Nigerian writers employ a transgressive and nuanced stance in their addressing of the postcolonial Nigerian woman’s quest for agency and self-definition within the challenging patriarchal spaces. These contemporary writers redress archetypal images of the silent and victimised African woman by reimagining her resilient and agentive role in dismantling the dominant patriarchal constructions in the nation and diaspora. Referring to the selected narratives of Sefi Atta, Tola Rotimi Abraham, Chinelo Okparanta, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Patience Ibrahim, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Chika Unigwe, this dissertation explores how third generation Nigerian writers deconstruct stereotypical gendered constructions of the African woman. In the aim of filling a gap in the existing African literary scholarship, this research maps Nigerian daughterhood against the patriarchal nation, reads the Nigerian woman’s sexual agency against the homophobia and religious orthodoxy, positions the Nigerian woman’s quest for selfhealing and agency against the masculinist discourse of terrorism, and addresses her quest for global citizenhood within the racialised and gendered topographies of the West. Feminist postcolonial theory is applied alongside womanism, lesbian feminism and Afropolitanism to reframe the African woman’s gendered subjectivity and her quest for agency.
Note
Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, 2023.
Recommended Citation
Prabath Shavinda, Dissanayake, "Redefining the African woman in the works of third generation Nigerian writers / Prabath Shavinda Dissanayake" (2023). Student Works (2020-2029). 1392.
https://knova.um.edu.my/student_works_2020s/1392