WIDOWHOOD IN LONELY DAYS: UNSUNG CASUALTIES

Abstract

The concept of widowhood has been a neglecteddiscourse in Nigeria and has not received the adequate attention it deserves through making appropriate governmental policies to protect the rights of widows. Little or no attention has been given to the subject matter in literary studies and this is due to the choice of scholars to focus on other areas of interest in women’s affairs than the widow’s plight and widowhood in general. However, widowhood is a very pertinent matter in literary texts and is intricately connected to the outer reality. This paper examines and brings to the fore, the precarious experiences of widows in the African societyportrayed in the Lonely Days from a feminist perspective. In addition, the widowhood situation, and series of events in Bayo Adebowale’s Lonely Days shall be studied on the backdrop of women’s lack of rights, empowerment, and subjugation.Yaremi, the protagonist in the novel, Lonely Days is a figure of the inhuman treatment suffered by widows in Kufi land after the demise of their husbands. She is overwhelmed with sorrowful thoughts, but finds solace in the fact that her husband, Ajumobi did not die an abominable death. The findings showed that the success of a woman does not depend on the sustainability of a man.