Concept Of Feminism In Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen And Okoye Ifeoma’s Behind The Clouds

1.1 Introduction

Feminism is a branch of social theory (autism) which symbolizes the struggle for participation of women in a literary world dominated by men.

In the African society, feminism has been deployed through a hostile barrier as the African culture itself regards it with so much disdain due to its belief that female emancipation and empowerment would jettison the essence of manhood as well as the roles of women in their matrimonial homes.

Femi Ojo-Ade (1983:158) African Literature Today views feminism as:

an accidental phenomenon that is gradually creeping into the forbidden land of African.

Therefore, most of the African female writers preferred to be referred to as matherists/womanist instead of feminists because of the way feminism is believed to have ruined many homes then.

Today, the feminist theory and in movement advocate a pattern of lifestyle, activities and mode of living. An ideal woman should involve herself in the traditional African Societies, women were regarded as inferior, they dare not look their husbands or men in the face. They were treated as housewives (almost servants) who must do all the domestic works and must always follow the dictates of their husbands without asking questions.

This shows that the typical African woman is the obedient servant who must do all her husband’s biddings without as much as asking him to explain.

This backward position of women in Africa contributed immensely to the late involvement of female writers. Before the arrival of these female writers, their male counterparts have been presenting female characters as housewives, mothers, whore and dependent characters with their succor being men. Such writers include, Meja Nwangi’s “Going Down the River Road”, Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and so on.

But when the female writers emerged, things started changing. Although, not all female writers are feminists but each writer shows different feminist trends. The African female writers have conceived themselves with changing depreciating characters. They faced their challenge with all courage, bravery and a daring heart.

Viadimir Lemin sees women from a different point of view saying “we cannot go forward without women”. He emphasizes more on women being the backbone, for any man for him to be successful thus proving right that common saying “Behind every successful man, there is a woman.”

It is even more pitiable to realize that women had existed in the world almost as long as men had. The woman was created with the man. In the Biblical Garden of Eden, woman was created a short while after the man had been created and if it is not for the woman (Eve), man (Adam) may never know a thing in the world. It is not that women had just been created in the 18th Century when the revolution or the feminist moment started. But man had dominated all activities in the world and would not allow for equality with the women so that women could be known and heard at the same time with men. This has put women far behind the men folk in all areas of life, the political, economical, occupational and educational aspect of life inclusive.

In most cases women are regarded as second class to men, they are not even recognized at all in some cases. In Christian religion, women are admonished to be submissive to their husbands; doing only that which their husbands want them to do or approves of. They must be very obedient and submissive; they must obey their husbands at all times and never refuse them anything even if it is not really convenient for the wives.

“Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husband in everything”

The result is that women were put behind men as their submissive helper (servant).

Feminism is referred to as the belief that women should have economic, political and social equality with men. Feminism is also referred to as a movement that works to gain such equality which movement is sometimes called the women’s liberation movement or women’s rights movement.

In view of this, this research will focus on the effort of women writers to make this movement a reality in Africa.

Women need to arise to stop what they do not want, and in particular to oppose whatever seeks to deny or deprive them of their rights.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is to examine how Buchi Emecheta and Ifeoma Okoye two African feminist writers used their female characters in the novels to portray and depict how women were able to endure the struggles and challenges imposed upon them in the male domineering society and how they came out of it, and were able to challenge women to stop allowing themselves to be treated anyhow by men.

1.3 Scope and Limitation

This research will only be limited to the struggle for survival by the female character in the works of Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Ifeoma Okoye’s Behind the Clouds.

1.4 Justification of the Study

This study is embarked upon because though it is believed that women are now being given a fair hearing in the society. Feminism is yet to be embraced as an equal work on the Nigeria Literary Scene.

In reaction, a critical study will be carried out on the two fore mentioned texts bringing out the feminist features as observed in the text and to make women see the light of their freedom.

1.5 Methodology

The major source for the material in the writing of this project work will be restricted to the library and the internet due to the inability of conducting a private interview with the novelists.

1.6 Aim and Objective

Looking at all this, this research will focus on the effort of women writers to make this movement workable in Africa.

We shall take a look at Buchi Emecheta’s contribution in her Novel Second Class Citizen and how she has achieved her goals. Also Ifeoma Okeye’s Behind the Cloud will also be treated with focus on how she achieved her own feminist goals.

1.7 Biographical Notes on Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She was born of Ibuza heritage. She is a Nigerian writer with a B.Sc degree. She attended Methodist Girls High School, Yaba Lagos in Nigeria and University of London U. K. She was appointed Senior Research Fellow, Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria in 1980.

A member of Art Council of Great Britain, member of Advisory Council, Home Secretary on Race and Equity, London, U.K. Her awards include Best black writer in Britain, 1978: Jock Campbell awards, 1979, Daughter of Mark Twain, an American literature award.

She has many publications to her credit, they include the following:- In the Ditch published in 1972, Second Class Citizen(1974), The Slave Girls (1976), the Joys of Motherhood (1979), Destination Biafra (1982) her auto biography, Head above Water (1986) and many others.

She is a mother of five children. She is a sociology graduate of London University.

1.8 Biographical Note on Ifeoma Okoye

Ifeoma Okoye

Ifeoma Okoye started her writing career when she discovered herself to have the potentials for writing. She also discovered that children did not have adequate books on children especially stories on Nigeria children, so she was surprised to write some children’s books which are The Adventures of Tolu, The Little Monkey, Eze goes to School, No School for Eze, Village Boy, Only Breed to Eze all of which were published in 1980.

Her first adult novel was men without ears she said she considered herself lucky to have got a publisher for the book which was published in 1984. Her second Novel Behind the Clouds was published in 1988. Her novel Men without Ears won the 1984 prize for the Association of Nigerian Authors best fiction of year.

She is happily married to famous husband, Mokwogo Okoye whom she respects and cherishes so much. They have a son and four daughters.

Chapter Five

Conclusion

The urge and desire to see women having same rights as men is burning like wild fire in every woman today. Also, some men realize and feel disgusted by the way females are being treated as second fiddle. This male chauvinism goes beyond domestic and religious to the secular world.

You could imagine a situation whereby a woman is denied a position that belongs to her by right and by qualification just because of her sex. For instance according to the Chauvinists, a woman’s place is in the house to cook and take care of her children and husband. While agreeing with this to some extent, it is of importance to point out that this is not only the woman’s job. A husband who wants children should also be prepared to shoulder the greater responsibility in taking care of them not just financially but in every aspect of life. Therefore, women should be allowed to use their (education) qualification as much as men.

The main issue in Behind the Cloud is the importance of children in marriage in the African tradition, and how the lack of children in a marriage can destroy or mar the marriage no matter how happy the couple may ‘ seem to be’. In Second Class Citizen, Adah’s mother-in-law would not have ‘loved; her in spite of the money and gifts that she lavishes on her but for the fact that she was procreating. It is being said that, a woman would be forgiven everything as long as she produce children. Adah was so fast on this score…. Second Class Citizen B. Emecheta (1977: 28).
This is the cause of mama’s cold attitude towards Ije in Behind the Cloud.

The two writers, Buchi Emecheta and Ifeoma called on women to love their husbands withall their hearts, to respect and support them and to see themselves as their better halves. The writers portrays this through Adah and Ije, their central characters, who love their husbands and support them financially when both husbands were studying. In the same vein, they called on husbands to love their wives in all situations and not to heed parents’ or friends’ advice against their spouses but to see them better than they do now.

The two writers use both the western ideas of feminism (that women and men are equal, that women can do what men can do) and African tradition (that when men are talking women should be silent and should have no say) to drive home their points. They condemned some old African myths and beliefs against women which are barbaric and unrealistic. They also frownat the African myth that it is the woman’s job alone to make a marriage work, the husband’s incapability and non- challant attitude notwithstanding.

Like most African female writers, both writers frown at and condemn polygamy. If only the female rights are advocated for in full, the wives will have the right to marry another husband and bring him into the house just like the husbands whenever the latter marries another wife. After all, it is equal right. The narrator says:

Understand what, the supremacy of instinct or the right to betray! The justification of the desire for variety! I could not be an ally to a polygamist instinct. Ba Mariama (1982: 34) “So long a letter”.

The above quoted statement was uttered by Ramatoulaye a woman betrayed by her husband in Mariama Ba’s So long a letter. From the onset, women had always suffered or had been adversely affected whenever their husbands betrayed them to marry another woman.

In the old African days, women resolved to “juju”, black medicine, to eliminate each other from their husbands’ homes, leaving out their men who were the main cause of polygamy. Women fought and still fight against polygamy because it hurts their pride and above all betrayed the trust which they might have had in their men. An old adage goes thus “God let me be two in the house is a vain prayer by women.” A woman in her right sense will never want another woman to be her husband’s other woman no matter what.

She will go to any length to prevent such move by her man. Some childless women who know that their husband may get another woman because of their inability to give him a child, will go to the extent of being unfaithful to their husband in order to get a child and still have a hold on their husbands and marriage. The problem of childlessness in this case does not lie with the woman but with the man. However, due to men’s belief, which they had of course passed to everybody that the problem of childlessness always lies with the woman, the man will not think it right to submit himself to medical tests and cares which they subject the woman to, no matter how painful and dangerous they may be. Emecheta and Okoye put their women in the middle of a corrupted world, both in Nigeria and abroad. They portray them as being above the temptations and corruptions which their men easily fall prey to.

Okoye appears to be varied and diversified in her themes and style but the main theme cannot be mistaken. Both writers strongly speak on and advocate women’s independence and freedom.

Emecheta says of matrimony as slavery and as a way of getting free sex; a legalized way of committing assaults ‘on the women’ and getting away with it Eldned Dorosimi et al (1983) African Literature Today’ all these are true of Francis character to Adah in Second Class Citizen which made Adah to leave her husband and home alone. Okoye simply detest polygamy and exemplifies it in Ije who left her husband after the latter took a new wife. Emecheta describes a woman’s plight as

It is a curse to be an orphan, a double curse to be a black one. In a white country, an unforgivable calamity to be a woman with five kids without a husband. Emecheta Buchi (1972: 16).

The two writers note and frown against the imbalance and injustice in the African families that favour men only and put the women at the receiving end. They point out women’s virtuousness in sprite of the so many opportunities denied them by men and in spite of the societal decadence. Both writers portray women that has excellent characters and exhibit good morals, while the man plays the role of polygamists, who are unfaithful to their wives, who victimize their wives. Men in the two novels are symbolic of moral decadence. They portray women that will not wait upon their husbands for every thing (as Okoye puts it) but will rather have their own independent decision to take.

Both writers therefore, condemn men for creating problems in the family either through their over dominance and irresponsibility or through flirting and polygamy. They encourage women to take courageous steps and get themselves out of the dilemma into which their husbands have put them i.e. the dilemma of choosing between freedom and adhering to the old tradition that puts women so much under men.

The African female writers who are now very conscious of the second class position the African tradition puts women, are fighting against this position by writing novels of a new trend which are womanistic and feministic in orientation. Their novels are now directed at changing theroles and images that African tradition and their male counterparts assigned to them. Their works involve changing some beliefs and myths that are responsible for women’s predicaments in Africa even till date. They also portray the African women in real life situation that is, as courageous, independent, determined and a very good source from which their husbands get advice and support.
Feminism as a theory is neither advocating for the supremacy of women on men nor for the over dominance of men on women. But simply for equality of both sexes politically, economically, socially, occupationally, domestically and even religiously.