This essay will consist of a brief background of both the story and the authors and I will compare and contrast both Indian and Nigerian culture and tradition, specifically looking at the woman’s role and duty within their family and community. The short story ‘A stench of kerosene’ retells the story of a young woman called Gulleri, who lives with her husband Manak and his family. Gulleri is unable to bear a child and therefore unable to produce a son, because of this, Manak’s mother arranges him to marry another woman whilst Gulleri is at the yearly harvest fair in her home town of Chamba. When Gulleri hears of manak’s new wife she soaks her clothes in kerosene and sets herself on fire. Author of, a stench of kerosene, Amrita Pritam who was a citizen of India in 1947, was famously known to write about personal experiences and events that occurred in India, therefore it is quite possible she would have been an eyewitness to horrific scenes like the story of Gulleri, So It is quite fitting that she would write a story of this nature. The story Veronica is also about a young woman, who lives with her family in a small village in Nigeria and her friend Okeke who leaves Nigeria to gain an education in England, ten years later he returned to find Veronica was married, with a child and living in acute poverty. Okeke left Nigeria and returned three years later after the destruction of the civil war, where he met Veronica for the very last time, Veronica died in Okeke’s arms. The author Adewale Maja-Pearce was a citizen of Nigeria, in fact his personal life is reflected greatly in this story as he actually grew up in Lagos and was educated at English universities.
The saying “A women’s place is in the kitchen”, comes to mind when read...
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...on the current symbolised the different paths of which they both will follow. The river was used again towards the end of the story where Okeke buries Veronica and say’s his last goodbye. ‘Afterwards he watched the flow of the stream’ this time the river represented the end of their friendship and the continuing of time after everything that has happened between Okeke and Veronica. The continuing of life is not apparent for Manak in ‘A stench of kerosene’ his life ended the moment he found out his wife had committed suicide by Fire, although he’s not dead physically he has mentally followed in Guleri's footstep. He is so dead inside that not even a new life can revive his feelings, the child is just a reminder of his guilt and the reason for Guleri's death and this is why he cannot bear to hold the child and why the baby metaphorically smells of kerosene.
The book Monique and the Mango Rains is written on the backdrop of one of the poorest countries in the world where people are uneducated but they have their own culture and customs which they follow ardently. However the practices somehow match with the current world of hypocrite people but unknowingly they are present in the small village Nampossela of Mali where author interacted with Monique the central character of the
In “Monique and the Mango Rains”, Holloway describes her encounters with the difficulties of the women in the village of Nampossela and childbirth practices of midwifes in Mali. As a young white woman from Ohio, Holloway uses her unique perspective to write a description of her experiences of the rural midwifery practices of Monique and the hardships of the women she meets in Mali. Holloway uses her knowledge of the later events to enhance her description of her time as a Peace Corp volunteer and her observations of the village she lived in.
Were Dash’s audience to return to the South Sea islands eighty years after “Daughters of the Dust” they might find the Gullah people and their lives similar to those of the Willow Springs of Naylor’s novel. Although nearly a century spans between them, these two people nevertheless share many traits. Many of the residents of Willow Springs answer to a nickname given them as a child; similarly, Viola Peazant reminisces about the nicknames given to children in Ibo Landing. Members of both communities, generations from Africa and steeped in “modernity,” still come to the traditional herbalist for help in matters of the body and spirit: Eula uses Nana’s medicine to contact the soul of her deceased mother; Bernice and Ambush come to Mama Day to heal Bernice when she becomes ill, and later for help in conceiving a child. Both Nana Peazant and Mama Day draw their knowledge from a life lived on their respective islands and their strength from their ancestors, whom they visit and tend at the village graveyards. And like Nana Peazant, Mama Day struggles to maintain a tie with her family members who have left the island and immersed themselves in the mainstream culture.
Head, Bessie. “Snapshots of a Wedding.” Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa. Ed. Charlotte H. Bruner, et al. London: Heinmann Books, 1983. 157-161.
This is a gripping novel about the problem of European colonialism in Africa. The story relates the cultural collision that occurs when Christian English missionaries arrive among the Ibos of Nigeria, bringing along their European ways of life and religion.
Throughout the centuries, the roles of Nigerian women have continuously evolved. During the pre- colonial era, women in Nigerian tribes were not only child bearers and wives, but also free adults. They played critical roles in food preparation, weaving, pottery, and the economy. However, the impact of British rule in Nigeria made a significant shift from the pre-colonial to the post- colonial era. The influence of the Catholic Church, Western style education, patriarchal government and modern ways of making money took a major toll in a woman’s role in society. In Chimamanda Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus, Mama Beatrice and Aunty Ifeoma are dynamic female foils who represent opposite sides of spectrum in post- colonial feminism. Mama epitomizes the product of colonialism, while Aunty Ifeoma challenges the British influence and growing power of men.
Adichie portrays the persisting existence of traditional African culture through Odenigbo’s mother – who symbolizes the extreme end of traditional beliefs. When Odenigbo’s mother visits Odenigbo and Olanna at their apartment in Nsukka, she is immediately personified as the traditional Nigerian village woman. Unaccepting of modern attitudes and advancements, she “peered suspiciously at the stove, knocked on the pressure cooker and tapped the pots...
In the play Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka, the author uses the representation of woman as the defenders of the Yoruba tradition. Soyinka tells us in this “Author’s note” that the play is based on an incident in Nigeria in 1949. In Yoruba tradition, it is the sacrifice of the king’s horseman that plays the essential role in bringing good fortune onto the community. While these leaders of the Yoruba culture are predominantly male, the role of the Yoruba woman as both defender and keeper of these traditions are of equal importance. The representation of men and women in Death and the King’s Horseman, demonstrates that nationalism is a gendered construct; in which the women are the stability in masculine nationalism. The characters Iyaloja, the daughters of the market, and the virgin bride play a role in persevering the Yoruba tradition from the colonizer, and also the males in their village.
A Comparison of A Stench of Kerosene by Amritsa Pritam with Veronica by Adwale Maja-Pearce
Things Fall Apart, a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is a story about an Igbo village in Nigeria and a man that once was a powerful influence in the tribe, but begins to lose his influence as Nigeria is colonized and Christian missionaries come to evangelize. A deeper look at the novel, with a feminist critics point of view, tells a lot about the Igbo people as well as the author’s thoughts about women in the novel. Feminist critics look at female authors, and female characters and their treatment as well as women’s issues in society. Since Achebe is a male, the main focus of feminist literary criticism for Things Fall Apart is the women in the novel and their issues as well as the Igbo view of gender identity. Many issues that women
In his play Death and King’s Horseman, Wole Soyinka shows that women had important and recognized roles in traditional Yoruba society. Women fulfill their social, moral and spiritual roles as mothers, enforces of the discipline, show guidance to the community. Iyaloja, the Mother of the Market, is politically and spiritually critical. Aside from being the enforcer of discipline, her towering image in terms of influence is a great source of nourishment to the entire community. In the play, the women of the market are also capable of assuming positions of power, reducing man’s superiority. Wole Soyinka shows different ways of thinking about power, influence and responsibility.
The small African village located on the bank of the river Niger has a story of its own, that only the old and wise are able to des...
“The Joys of Motherhood” by Buchi Emecheta reveals an interesting struggle between one’s own core values and the core values of others. The protagonist Nnu Ego begins her journey of self-discovery alone and barren. It is not until later that she sees being barren as a gift and being fertile as a burden. This drastic shift is brought on by her move from Ibuza to Lagos and the difference in culture she is exposed to as time progresses. In the novel, Nnu Ego faces obstacles that relate to changing gender roles in the community of Lagos, resulting in the shift of her beliefs from those established by her upbringing in Ibuza.
My favourite text is a play titled “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo which was published in year 1969. This book was first given to me by my father on my twelfth birthday. Although I was disappointed initially because I was expecting something “girly” on my birthday, I liked it when I read it because of the moral lessons it portrayed and the language used in the play. However, I got a deeper understanding of the test after I did a post-colonial and a feminist analysis on the text. In my post-colonial analysis, I saw that in a sense Anowa represents the beauty of the formal African society which was destroyed as a result of colonialism. A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman who is struggling against the 1870’s African feminist identity (the identity of weakness).
Ogundipe-Leslie, Molora. "The Female Writer and Her Commitment." Women in African Literature Today. Ed. Eldred Durosimi Jones. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987. 5-14.