Resisting Dominant Regimes: Patriarchy and Neo-colonialism in Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s Wizard of the Crow

Abstract

This study treats the various aspects of the resistance mechanisms devised by Ngugi Wa Thiongo in order to empower African women in a male-dominated society. This paper shows the tyranny to which women are subjected such as polygamy and wife-beating and analyses Ngugi’s firm belief that change is a gradual process as reflected in the novel subject of study. While most of Ngugi’s novels reflect traditional African values of motherhood and are more connected to African feminism, Wizard of the Crow breaks new grounds as women acquire more experience and conquer more fields towards empowering themselves through resistance devices based on such concepts as sisterhood and female consciousness. In this sense, they manage to prove themselves as superior to men. Using such techniques and theories of postcolonial literature as neo-colonialism and magical realism, and comparing the novel to Eastern and Central European postcolonial writing, Wizard of the Crow shows how the concerns and aesthetics of post-totalitarian discourses overlap.

Presenters

Riham Yassin
Assistant Lecturer, Faculty of Linguistics and Translation - English Department, Badr University in Cairo, Egypt

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Literary Humanities

KEYWORDS

African Feminism, Ngugi WaThiongo, Resistance, Decoloniazation, Wizard of the Crow