FEMINIST AESTHETICS IN FLORA NWAPA’S EFURU AND MARIAMA BA’S SO LONG A LETTER

Abstract

ABSTRACT The thesis examines feminist aesthetics in Flora Nwapa’s Efuru and Mariama Ba’s So Long A Letter. By aesthetics, we mean the writers’ relationship to the societal conditions under which they produce their works.The study focuses on some of the evil practices against the freedom of women, both as individuals and writers, which have continued to persist in the Igbo and the Wolof societies. Thus, the feminist aesthetics in Flora Nwapa’s Efuru and Mariama Ba’s So Long A Letter relates to the writers’ awareness of the women’s problems and the stylistic devices that they use in voicing the problems of women and all women’s attainment of self-liberation and social transformation. This could, genuinely, be attributed to the fact that the social conditions under which the writers produced their works are patriarchal in nature. As for the method, the information and data are obtained, primarily, from the research tools comprising the two novels under discussion and other existing textbooks, articles and journals, on the topic of research, found in the library and the web. The researcher finds out that despite the global efforts, by both men and women, for gender equality, women are still marginalized. Yet, women arecapable of greater achievements to the extent of influencing their community positively. Thus, Flora Nwapa and Mariama Ba, by virtue of their shared gender experience as well as by their desire to transform these experiences into weapons of change,call on both men and women to join their strengths and shoulder responsibilities for the benefit of Africa. As a result, for any meaningful development in literary studies, in both Nigeria and Senegal, the relevance of women writers must be taken into consideration. The researcher, finally,usesthe theory of African feminismto enable the readersuncover some measures of protest from the female characters and, accordingly, its contribution to create a society without discrimination.