From Chinua Achebe to Fred Khumalo

293 Pages·2017·2.21 MB·English

From Chinua Achebe to Fred Khumalo: The Politics of Black Female Cultural Difference
in Seven Literary Texts

by

David Magege

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Literature and Philosophy

In the subject of

ENGLISH

at the

University of South Africa

Promoter: Professor Kgomotso Masemola

October 2016

i
Declaration

Student Number: 4884612

I, David Magege, declare that “ From Chinua Achebe to Fred Khumalo: The Politics of Black
Female Cultural Difference in Seven Literary Texts “ is my own work and that all the sources I
have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references

Signature: 31 October 2016

ii
Dedication
This accomplished piece of literary scholarship is dedicated to my dear wife Loveness, for her
warmth of love and emotional support throughout the entire duration of my study.

iii
Acknowledgement
For a study of this magnitude and depth, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the following
individuals and institutions. I am particularly indebted to their unwavering support during the
entire duration of my study.
Firstly, I would like to express my most heartfelt thanks to Professor K. Masemola, for his selfless
erudite mentorship which helped open vistas of knowledge through all the stages of my research.
In addition to the insightful resources he availed me I also benefited through his prompt
feedbacks. On the few occasions I came to personally seek his guidance we always worked under
a conducive brotherly atmosphere and all this accelerated my study pace.
I also wish to extend my gratitude to Mr Dawie Malan, the Unisa Subject Librarian, for timeously
identifying and posting me relevant resources as well as important guides for carrying out my
research.
Last but not least, I would like to show my appreciation to the finance and Administration
personnel in the institution, for processing my bursary and seeing to it that I carried out my
research without any financial constraints. Once again, I thank you all for contributing to the
success of my study.

iv
Abstract
This study explores the notion of female cultural difference in the context of dominant patriarchal
and other oppressive patriarchal structures. Essentially, its focus is on deconstructing
stereotypical images of women, who are often perceived as homogenous. Throughout the study
I argue that as much as their sensibilities are varied, African and African American women
respond differently to the oppressive conditions they find themselves in.
The following selected texts provided the opportunities for exploring and evaluating the
genealogy of female cultural difference that is central to my research: Anthills of the Savannah
(Chinua Achebe); Scarlet Song (Mariama Ba); The Joys of Motherhood and Kehinde
(BuchiEmecheta); Their Eyes Were Watching God (Nora Zeale Hurston); Bitches Brew and
Seven Steps to Heaven (Fred Khumalo). In the process of analyzing these texts, I demonstrated
that the notion of cultural difference is often narrowly and erroneously construed. I discovered
that the protagonists in these texts are not only conscious of their oppressed condition but often
adopt strategic agency to contest male privileges that silence them. In pursuit of this critical
perspective, I have proceeded to apply relevant theoretical frameworks constructed by Cornel
West, Hudson-Weems, Bakhtin and a conflation of others whose philosophical tenets support the
major theoretical frameworks. The aforementioned literary critics have enabled me to come up
with a more comprehensive and richer analysis of the set texts.
In my analysis I have advanced the argument that female visibility manifests itself variously
and temporally through individual and sometimes sisterly attempts at empowerment, self-
definition and esoteric discursive features. I noted that all this is evidence of the nascent creative
potential in African women who refuse to be silenced.
In my analysis of the Seven texts I have incorporated, modified and developed some of the
insights from critical thinkers who engage in the ongoing debate about female cultural
difference. This approach has enabled me to come up with new insights that ferret out veneers
v
of African women’s rich cultural diversity, in light of the ever changing nature of women’s
operational spaces. It is this transcendental vision that basically informs and resonates with my
study.
Key ideas
Black literature; deconstruction; textual politics; representation; visibility; agency; patriarchy;
Africana-Womanism; heteroglossia; self-definition; oppression; Signifying; cultural diversity.

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Contents
Declaration ...................................................................................................................................................... ii
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................................................... iv
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................... v
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1
FORMULATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM............................................................................................. 1
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM ........................................................................................ 1
1.2 DEMARCATION OF THE SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION .......................................................................... 2
2. MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY ................................................................................................................. 3
3. AIMS OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................................................ 3
4. METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................................................... 4
5. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter One : Anthills of the Savannah ........................................................................................................ 23
Representation of men as agents of invisibility ...................................................................................... 27
Representation of female visibility and resistance ................................................................................... 30
Movement and stasis in female representation ...................................................................................... 34
Beyond Nwayibuife: Mapping the future role of the African woman in the post independence era. ... 37
Deconstructing African women’s class differences: Towards shared sensibilities and empowerment .. 46
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 54
Chapter Two: Scarlet Song, by Mariama Ba ................................................................................................ 56
Choice, Marriage and Motherhood: Towards a deconstruction of racial and cultural prejudices ......... 56
Women, difference and the struggle for domestic space ........................................................................ 63
Femininity, desire and embodiment: Taunting the male gaze ................................................................ 69
Journeying through”sameness”? Convergence, Divergence and rupture................................................ 74
Echoing voices: Negotiating fractured visions of the Postcolonial .......................................................... 80
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 89
Chapter Three: The Joys of Motherhood, Buchi Emecheta ........................................................................ 90
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 90
Divergent sensibilities, unique experiences: The dynamics of female subjectivities ........................... 93
Marriage , Masculinities and female entrapment in the domestic sphere ............................................ 101
Intrusive values: The urban colonial space and challenges for the African woman ............................. 105
Parenting in an African family context : Hopes and impediments, conflicting values ......................... 109
Unravelling the diversity of African women’s heteroglossia ................................................................. 114
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Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 118
Chapter Four : Kehinde, by Buchi Emecheta: ............................................................................................ 121
Emerging perceptions: Diasporic oscillations of the African woman’s quest for self recognition ...... 122
Negotiating male compatibility: The challenge of cultural imperatives ................................................ 128
Reclaiming lost identity: Exploring the discourse of female solidarity and visibility .............................. 131
Immortalised voices: Navigating through the contours of female presences in the postcolonial ....... 140
Motherhood and the matrimonial paradox: Traversing the confluences of home, exile and domesticity
................................................................................................................................................................ 146
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 153
Chapter Five : Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston .................................................... 155
Race, class and historical contingency in Their Eyes Were Watching God : A Womanist perspective of
signification ............................................................................................................................................. 156
Marriage and Choice: The motif of time in the genealogy of female cultural difference ...................... 162
Subjectivity and identity: Challenges for the black woman’s empowerment. ....................................... 170
Rediscovering a female cultural discourse : Diversity and challenges for a transcendental project .... 179
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 187
Chapter Six : Bitches Brew ........................................................................................................................ 189
From Lesotho to Chesterville: A woman’s epic journey towards love, security and fulfillment. ........... 190
Transcending Cultural frontiers: Challenges to women ‘s subjectivities in the changing South African
socioeconomic terrain ............................................................................................................................ 197
Gendered discursive strategies: Mapping fractured identities through self telling. ............................. 203
Jazz vibes for Boozers’ Shebeenites : The monstrous complicities behind black South African social life
................................................................................................................................................................ 210
Inside the BP (Bhazabhaza Peace ) lair: Confessions of sadistic male and female victimizers ........... 215
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 223
Chapter Seven: Seven Steps to Heaven: Fred Khumalo ...................................................................... 225
Exploring dimensions of female visibility through the male author’s purview ...................................... 225
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 225
Identity, memory and Difference: Insights into family dynamics within the contemporary black urban
society ..................................................................................................................................................... 226
Deconstructing cultural conventions: A subversive or liberatory paradigm shift? ................................ 235
African Masculinities under Siege: The urban space as cauldron for socio-economic transformation 242
Genderised , racialised monstrosities : Towards transcultural alternative sexualities ......................... 247
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 256
Chapter Eight : Conclusions to the study .................................................................................................. 258
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Restatement of research questions ........................................................................................................ 259
Research findings in the context of theoretical foundations................................................................. 266
Convergences and divergences in the configuration of female characters............................................ 269
Challenges and the way forward ............................................................................................................ 270
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 272
Primary Sources ..................................................................................................................................... 272
Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................................. 272

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Introduction
FORMULATION OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Beginning with Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, which foregrounds Beatrice as the
epitome of female assertion of a liberatory paradigm of difference, based on Cornel West’s
(1990) notion of resistance to misrepresresentation and invisibility’, this thesis explores six
other comparable novels: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston, The Joys of
Motherhood and Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta, Scarlet Song by Mariama Ba, and Bitches
Brew and Seven Steps to Heaven by Fred Khumalo. The thesis ostensibly explores an
alternative referential dimension that is at one redemptive in outlook and transcendent in its
discursive practices. The thesis, therefore, sets out to use a decolonial deconstruction
epistemology that veers off the run-of-the-mill feminist critiques but, instead, inaugurates
African female self-recognition and representation through a prioritization of African
women’s sensibilities in both articulation and agency. Essentially, then, the problem is centred
around the following questions:
• what are the discursive motors of difference for the self-recognition in the
selected African and African American novels?
• what, pace West (1990: 94) are the politics of cultural difference at stake in
the seven novels under examination?
• Where are the coordinates of genealogies of difference in the strategies of
visibility in the novels?
• How have the authors depicted the African women’s responses to the
institutional power structures in the postcolonial era?
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