PATRIARCHAL MENTALITY AND THE FEMALE SPACE: A REPRESSIVE NEGOTIATION IN SELECTED NIGERIAN MALE-AUTHORED NOVELS

Abstract

The female space is one phenomenon that has been largely debated in literary sensibility despite decades of rethinking hurtful patriarchal mores within African social settings. It has been observed that the ideological perspectives of complementarity, negotiation and collaboration in African feminism have encouraged the stance of females negotiating space with male oppressors. This is visible in the subtle depiction of experiences that isolate female pain after severe traumatic events in literary texts written by male authors. For that purpose, this research examines oppressive patriarchal mentality that inhibits the female space in the selected novels of two Nigerian male novelists of Igbo descent. Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966) and Ikechukwu Asika’s Tamara (2013) have displayed a patriarchal mentality that spurs female dependence on males and the negotiation of spaces under oppression with less psychological stress in traumatic situations. Psychoanalytical perspectives are also adopted in interpreting female experiences in the selected novels.