SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN IN SCARLET SONG BY MARIAMA BÂ AND SECOND CLASS CITIZEN BY BUCHI EMECHETA

Abstract

The literary writings of the African woman after the colonial period is an expression of her personal experience in the patriarchal society. Thus, the colonized woman is oppressed in two ways: first is the structure of indigenous patriarchy, second is the foreign masculinist-colonialism. This was the case of Mariama Bâ and Buchi Emecheta who, endeavored to deconstruct gender hierarchy and the oppression of the African woman in Senegal and Nigeria respectively, by using characters of their protagonists in their works-The Scarlet Song by Bâ, and Second Class Citizen by Emecheta to bring to notice the extent of female subjugation in the African patriarchal society. Their literature is a representation of events undergone by women in their different geographical locations of Africa. For instance, Bâinferson Islamic discourse in Scarlet Song while Emechetadeduces from the Igbo tradition in Second Class Citizen. Two of them show intertextuality between their works and also they display some themes that expose the female suppression and oppression in the African patriarchal world.