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  • Individual vs. Communal Healing:Three African Females' Attempts at Constructing Unique Identities
  • Vivian Yenika-Agbaw (bio)

Within the past decade, scholars and critics have identified and discussed various images of African womanhood in literature. Most often these include images of motherhood, wifehood, and other subservient roles linked to class and ethnicity.1 These images are prevalent in the works of both male and female African writers. The differences lie, however, in their interpretations. Often, male authors hail African womanhood as supreme; hence, African women must be put on a pedestal because of the sacrifices they make for the well being of their families and society. However, the female authors, for the most part, interpret the roles in relation to patriarchal oppression. To them, denying oneself other identities in order to serve fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons limits the woman in several ways. Consequently, African female writers like Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Mariama Ba provide alternative images of how women in different settings actually deal with this reality.

As African women struggle against roles assigned to them by patriarchal structures, their daughters must either accept the limited options presented as their ultimate destiny, or look for alternative identities in a world that nurtures, confuses, and at times destroys them. Their fight to maintain a "self" they feel comfortable with must begin at an early age. Like many of their mothers, these teenaged girls may choose to accept the limitations of their gender, or, like their fathers, they may continue to deal with the reality of being black and African in a world still governed by western values. As a result, depicting adolescent girls in literary works continues to be a challenge even to African female writers. As a compromise between what is expected of adolescent girls in their African communities and an ideal they should aspire for, some female authors marry teenaged characters to older, wealthy men as second wives, or to men of equal or better circumstances for protection. Some use teenaged girls to punish the men in their communities, and other authors depict girls sent abroad without their consent to pursue western education.2 Still there are some authors who let their African female adolescent characters live in their society, examine their options, and make tough decisions as they search for identities suitable for their evolving needs. Two authors whose works exemplify this are Tsitsi Dangaremgba and Zaynab Alkali. Their novels, Nervous Conditions (1992) and The Stillborn (1989), explore adolescent girls' quests for new selves in their respective African communities. These authors painstakingly describe the compromises these girls make to accomplish personal goals; their dilemmas in male-female relationships; and, when necessary, their constant struggle with what Joy Bostic refers to as "multidimensional oppression" (142).3 The ability to assert one's identity without being crushed by the weight of indigenous and hybrid cultures cannot be over-stated, for cultural crossroads can be treacherous places even for the bravest of people.

Adolescent Girls and Cultural Conformity or Resistance

Dangaremgba's and Alkali's female adolescent characters deal with multifaceted problems that are overwhelming even to the adults in their worlds of southern Africa and West Africa. Tambudzai in Nervous Conditions is a poor, teenaged girl who must make difficult choices in the midst of patriarchal, colonial, racial, and class struggles. Within the Shona culture, she is expected to abide by the patriarchal rules that govern her village and other local communities. In the larger context of her country, Zimbabwe, she must also deal with racial and class issues that perpetually make her feel like an inferior other to the whites and the wealthy. Her struggles are compounded by remnants of colonialism that inadvertently make her a beggar in her own country. Simply put, life in such an environment can never be fair.

In the opening lines of the first chapter, the reader meets a thirteen-year-old girl whose perspective on life may be regarded as shocking. Using the first person narrative, Dangaremgba presents Tambudzai's confession:

I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologizing for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling. For it is not...

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