Polygamy and Sisterhood in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (1981): A Comparative Study
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Date
2022
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation is a comparative study between Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood
(1979) and Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (1981) in terms of ‘Polygamy’ and ‘Sisterhood’.
To achieve our objective, we have borrowed some concepts from Alice Walker’s theory of
‘Womanism’, In Search of our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983). Our discussion is
made up of two chapters. In the first chapter, we have discussed ‘Polygamy’. Then, we have
shown men’s authority over women in patriarchal communities. In the second chapter, we
have explored sisterhood as a means of freedom for African women to fight for liberation and
justice against this system of oppression. They give voice to their female characters in order
to demonstrate the injustice that women face in Nigerian and Senegalese societies.
Throughout the analyses of Buchi Emecheta’s and Mariama Ba’s works, we have concluded
that there are many similarities between The Joys of Motherhood and So Long a Letter. In
both novels, the institutions of polygamy empower men to rule their women who take
sisterhood for liberation.
Description
69p. ; (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
Polygamy, Sisterhood, Womanism, Discrimination, Oppression, African women, African societies
Citation
General and Comparative Literature