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The roles and duties of women in traditional Igbo culture
The roles and duties of women in traditional Igbo culture
+what were some negative and positive affects of gender roles in the igbo culture
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In this essay, the two novels under review are Chukwuemeka Ike’s Conspiracy of Silence and NgugiWaThiong’o’sWizard of the Crow. These novels are chosen because the authors make extensive comments on human conditions in societies. Chukwuemeka Ike uses Conspiracy of Silenceto attack the Igbo tradition which attaches undue importance to children especially the male children. This undue importance makes it possible for the society to be flooded with children who find it problematic either to live with or even to identify their biological fathers. Ike exposes different causes of fatherlessness for the general public to see and make mockery of. The Igbo tradition encourages a childless or sonless woman to marry her fellow woman, so that she will bear her children who will perpetuate her dead husband’s lineage. The questions that quickly come to one’s mind here are: How can a woman marry another woman? Can she impregnate the wife? The answers are obvious. A woman cannot impregnate another woman. The novel makes us to understand that what the “woman husband” does is to identify a man within the extended family to produce the babies, and warns the young bride not to stray. This arrangement has to be done secretly so that the man’s wife does not know about it. No wonder, then, that the children produced out of this type of arrangement are usually deprived of father-child relationship. Since they cannot identify openly with their fathers, even when they have the special grace of knowing who their fathers are, for many are not let into the secret. This makes them to grope around in ignorance. It is important to note the problem this tradition has created for such children: to deprive them of the knowledge of or the association with their biol... ... middle of paper ... ... African Literature.” Maxism and African Literature. Ed. Gulberger George. New Jersey: African World, 1985. 50-63. Print. Oriaifo, Sylvester. “Science, Technology and the Arts in National Development.” Nigerian and African Education: Crucial Issues. Ed. Anthony Ali. Awka: Meks, 1997. 109-122. Print. Osofisan, Femi. Insidious Treason: Drama as Post-Colonial State. Ibadan: OponIfa, 2001. Print. Sashkin, Marshall and Molly Sushkin. Leadership That Matters. Benin: Gospel, 2003. Print. Soyinka, Wole. “The Writer in the Modern African State.” Writer in Modern Africa. Ed. A. Wastberge. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1966. 15-24. Print. Sullivan, D.J. Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Bruce, 1957.Print. Umukoro, Simon. “Literature as an Inquiry into the Meaning of Life.” Journal of Literary Society of Nigeria (JLSN) 3.1 (2011): 1-16. Print.
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
Zahan, Dominique. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Trans. Kate Ezra Martin and Lawrence M. Martin. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1979.
Kandiyoti, Deniz. Invisible to the World? Rep. no. 49842. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2009. Print.
(7) Anthony Kwame Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosphy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Hugon, Anne. The Exploration of Africa: from Cairo to the Cape. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1991.
In sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of languages, cultures, and geographical regions helped influence our African society. The ways in which we produce our artwork, spiritual ideals, and ritual performances are organic and raw. From the tropical regions of Congo and Ghana, to the arid regions of Mali; I pass through the global gateway into a domain where the Western world lost its roots and artistic imagination and grandeur. Africa appeals most to me for its ability to create a realm where the living, dead, and artistic ideals come into a single unit of tranquil philosophy.
Angeles, Los. (2009). African arts. Volume 28. Published by African Studies Center, University of California.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print.
The Middle Passage presents very clearly the traditional European held notion of African savagery. In essence, everything about African people such as their religious views, cultural practices, and physical make reveals their lack of civility and class in relation to the western world. Of the most notable European notions about African religi...
Ngugi Wa Thingó. Writers in Politic: A Re-engagement with Issues in Literature and Society. Revised and enlarged ed. Nairobi, Oxford and Portsmouth: James Currey,East African Educational Publishers and Heinemann, 1981.
Davidson, Basil. Modern Africa A Social and Political History. Ney York: Longman Group UK Limited, 1983.
In Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie attempts to use history in order to gain leverage on the present, to subvert the single story stereotypes that dominate many contemporary discourses on Africa. Written in the genre of historical fiction, Adichie’s novel transcends beyond mere historical narration and recreates the polyphonic experiences of varying groups of people in Nigeria before and after the Civil War. She employs temporal distortion in her narrative, distorting time in order to illustrate the intertwining effects of the past and present, immersing deep into the impact of western domination that not only catalyzed the war, but continues to affect contemporary Africa. In this paper, I will analyze her portrayal of the multifaceted culture produced by colonialism – one that coalesces elements from traditional African culture with notions of western modernity to varying degrees. I will argue that Adichie uses a range of characters, including Odenigbo’s mother, Ugwu, Olanna and Kainene, to each represent a point in a spectrum between tradition and modernity. Through her juxtaposition, she undermines the stereotypes that continue to characterize Africa as backwards and traditional, proving instead that colonialism has produced a cross culture where the two are intertwined.
...econd African Writers Conference, Stockholm, 1986. Ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Upsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1998. 173-202.
Gikandi, Simon. "Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Literature." Classics in Context: Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe. Portsmouth: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1996
Mathabane, Mark. “I Leave South Africa”. The Many Worlds of Literature. Ed. Stuart and Terry Hirschberg. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2006.