아프리카 초기 여성문학에 나타난 여성주의

Under the European rules, African women were `a service class` not only to the European masters but also to their domestic masters. However, African women`s issues have never been the top agenda of such early African writers as Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong`o. Consequently, women did not have their own voices in the postcolonial African literature that upheld the cause of national liberation. Viewed from this perspective, the African womanist literature is expected to `write back` to the African nationalist discourse as well as to the European colonial discourse. Yet, this expectation does not always turn out to be met when one looks into the earliest works of the first generation African women writers. Cases in point are Flora Nwapa and Grace Ogot. This paper plans to delineate the common stance of Nwapa and of Ogot, as seen in their first novels, Efuru and The Promised Land, on the issues of patriarchy and tradition. These two novels, published in 1966, take issue with the patriarchal prerogatives and oppression of women. They are also at one with each other in criticizing the British rules of Africa. When it comes to the issue of tradition, these novels, however, strike slightly different notes. The Promised Land takes on the role of championing the traditional duties and highlighting the importance of the tribal custom whereas the titular character of Efuru strives to secure room for autonomy within the very system of traditional religion and economy. Despite this difference, sympathy is found in the womanist politics of both text for the tradition. This sympathy is attributable to the desire on the part of the writers to recover and preserve the traditional culture whose existence was denied by the colonizer. The somewhat reserved attitude (in the case of Nwapa) and the outright celebratory attitude (in the case of Ogot) towards tradition may appear to compromise the cause of women`s rights in the eyes of Western feminist reader and critics; yet this Western feminist view will be able to acquire legitimacy only after the historical realities lived by these two writers of having their tradition denied by the colonizers are severely discounted.