Trauma and Identity Crisis of Female Characters in Selected African Novels

Trauma and Identity Crisis of Female Characters in Selected African Novels

Background to the Study

The African continent is a society that has experienced patriarchy, colonialism and racial segregation and these reflect in African literature. The intrusion of Europe into the African continent in the 19th century brought about the upturning of lives and activities of Africans. The colonizers trampled upon Africa and her people. The people‟s way of life was distorted, almost abolished because of the claims of the colonial masters that it was barbaric. According to Ifeyinwa Ogbazi: … to the colonialists it was an unhealthy environment with a lot of disease, and an environment that was immersed in crises and civil strife. For them, it was life strangulating and with nothing positive to offer to the world. The peoples of Africa were perceived as primitive, hunger-stricken, impoverished, untamed and evil savages who only howl and bark. (History 3-4) To make matters worse, the continent was divided as a cake among the colonial masters: Anglophone Africa, Lusophone Africa and Francophone Africa leaving no part for Africans. Colonialism as a major theme influenced African Literature where most writers tried to debunk the derogatory image given to Africa. These gave rise to negritude literature which portrayed love for Africa. Negritude literature was developed mainly by Francophone writers like Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, David Diop and Leonard Sainville. They sought to examine, portray and uphold unique African cultural heritage. African literature took another positive turn when Chinua Achebe came into the scene with Things Fall Apart (1958) where he made a move to portray life as it is lived in Africa; how the people ruled, their 2 checks and balances, the legal system, the value system and their daily preoccupations. Achebe understood that there was an urgent need to assert the humanity and dignity of Africans. “Precisely, and very significantly, it was the defence of the humanity of Africans that triggered off the bulk of the initial literary works by early Africans” (Ogbazi History 13). Although the colonial experience was central to the African continent, the experience varied from region to region. The coming of independence in African countries saw the emergence of new social, political, and moral consequences like corruption, tribalism, religious conflicts, selfish governance and civil wars. These and the other continuing experiences of the African people in former colonies, have been continuously examined by post-colonial literary writers including the writers of the selected novels in this research. The effects of colonialism, civil wars, armed conflicts and racial clashes have been represented in the literature of different regions of Africa giving rise to the question of trauma especially for the female folk who were already subjected to the trauma of patriarchy and are the worst hit because the situation turned out to be double colonization. Civil wars and conflicts in Africa rose as a result of inequality, injustice, rivalry and tribalism. During war times there are anti-human activities like rape, lawlessness, bestiality and serious hostility leading to deaths, pains, insecurity, different forms and levels of trauma experienced by the people; especially by women and children. In African literature, traumatic effects of patriarchy, colonialism, racial segregation, oppression and wars reflect in the works of Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong‟o, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Dennis Brutus, Tess Onwueme, Isidore Okpewho, Yvonne Vera, Nawal El Saadawi, Nadine Gordimer, Chimamanda Adichie, and many others. These writers have created characters that are adversely affected by devastating historical and personal events. The history of the African female who has gone through patriarchy, colonization and racism is that of the subjugated; pushed into a certain class and position. She is therefore 3 faced with fragmentation, alienation, filled with despair and loneliness and these adversely affect her personality. As such, patriarchy, oppression, armed conflicts, racial segregation and wars which produce unhealthy environment that leads to psychological and emotional trauma for the female are evident in the novels under study

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