Examining The (In)Significance Of The African Boychild As An Unheard Voice In Feminist Critical Discources: A Literary Exploration Of Ba, Dangarembga And Andreas` Selected Works

ABSTRACT

This thesis examined how literature presents the (in)significance of the African boy child as an unheard voice in the selected feminist critical discourses of three literary works - Mariama Ba’s (1979) So Long a Letter, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s (1989) Nervous Conditions and Neshani Andreas’s The Purple Violet of Oshantuu (2001). The presentation of the boy child in African feminist writing is an area which has not been given much attention in gender writing. The thrust in this research rests on the traditional African perspective, on who can be defined as the African boy child. This study incorporated young and grown up males, bearing in mind the fact that a grown up man in the African culture can be considered a boy child. This is so as to accommodate all males that are presented in the selected feminist critical discourse. Studies on the (re)presentation of the boy child in literary fiction is, as far as the research has established, an understudied area within the broader area of gender discourse. The three novels were selected using purposive sampling as they portray an array of masculinities. The researcher employed Masculinities and Nego-feminism as literary theories to underpin this study, from examining the various roles boy children and males in general play in the texts. Masculinities as a concept was used in order to magnify the construction of the boy child’s identity as it has a lot of bearing on the character of men. Nego-feminism places both genders side by side as men and women try to negotiate their spaces in life and mirrors how the negotiated spaces between the boy children and the females bring about a transformed society in which negative patriarchal values melt away. The study analysed how the three selected female authors portray masculinities as they are experienced in daily life and where historical periods determine their different reactions to the social constructs that gender is. A qualitative research design was adopted to interpret the portrayal of masculinities in the two novels. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the three novels for the portrayal of the boy child characters. The study indicated that the boy child’s identities are a product of a social construct which differs from community to community, and are constantly subject to change. The study observed that the selected feminist discourses have seemingly muted the voice of the boy child who is represented in the three texts as having a privileged position in the society compared to the girl child. The study further noted that feminist writers employ a boy child inhibiting motif that is embraced in muted efforts of the African patriarch to improve gender issues by pedestalising the female voice. The study evaluated the effectiveness of the boy children’s silences in matters pertaining to human affairs and the erasure of hegemonic influences on the globe as one of the fundamental aspects of feminism. The three selected female authors seemingly represented the boy children in a society that exploits the patriarchal dividend of power and hold on to the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity. However, the research also observed that, as portrayed by Ba, Dangarembga and Andreas, some of the boy children are virtuous, admirable and responsible. In discoursing about the boy child (re)presentations of the boy child adjunct inter-texting themes include brotherhood, boy child education as reflection of gender preferences and an instrument of oppression, fathers and son relationships and boy hood as a construct through socialisation, tradition, cultural practices, education and projections of gender.