African women in a changing world : a study of some novels by Emecheta Buchi

Abstract

The first chapter is an introduction to the life of Emecheta Buchi, before becoming an author, up to when ~he gained acclaim and recognition as an African woman writer. She had to struggle in her life as she was never satisfied with the role of simply being a wife and mother. In fact she gives the black woman a positive role in her novels. Some of her works depend on the lived reality of her real world. The following chapters are a brief discussion of some of Buchi Emecheta' s novels. The novels discussed are The Slave Girl, The Joys of Motherhood, Double Yoke, Second Class Citizen, and In the Ditch. In these novels Buchi Emecheta stresses the struggle that a woman has to go through in order to succeed in a patriarchal society. In other words, her novels are about survival, as the female has to struggle against the social, economic and cultural forces. The setting of her stories varies between Africa and Europe. Both continents are experiencing the evolution of the female. In fact, even Europe was once a highly male dominated society. However, it seems that both societies still have a long way to go to achieve true equality between the sexes.