Gender Considerations and Power (Re) Negotiation in Angie Cruz’s Dominicana, Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again (Published)
The gender agenda constitutes an ongoing topical issue in all aspects of life and in literature in particular. This work seeks to examine the manner in which Angie Cruz, Julia Alvarez and Ola Rotimi represent the relationship between power and gender in Dominicana, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again respectively. The question on which the research hinges is: How do Angie Cruz, Julia Alvarez and Ola Rotimi project the link between status and gender in Dominicana, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again respectively? It is hypothesized that gender plays an important role in establishing power structures in the set texts. From a theoretical perspective, Feminist Literary Criticism as articulated by Simone de Beauvoir is used. This work, divided into two sections, concludes that Angie Cruz, Julia Alvarez and Ola Rotimi present power structures as dependent on gender considerations that benefit both men and women. This paper contributes to the ongoing conversation about the relationship between gender and power (re)distribution; and also enhances an understanding of the manner in which power was negotiated and contested along gender lines in the Dominican Republic and Nigeria given the then social, cultural, economic and political contexts.
Keywords: Gender, Power, domination, emancipation, feminist literary criticism
Discovering ‘Nora’ and ‘Romita’s Entity and Identity in Their Contemporary Societies in the Light of Feminism: A Comparative Study between Ibsen’s a Doll’s House and Suchitra’s Dahan (Published)
This article investigates both the texts in the eyes of feminism, here, one is a Norwegian play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen and the other one is an Indian novel “Dahan” by Suchitra Bhattacharya. It aims to explore the deteriorating social and economic conditions of women and lastly their search for individual entity and identity. Ibsen wrote “A Doll’s House” (1879) whereas after more than 100 years later Suchitra wrote “Dahan” (1996) but the depiction of women in our society remains standstill. They are still undergoing exploitation, negligence, injustice, disrespect, patriarchal domination etc. These two literary pieces focus on these issues against women and make a comparative study between them. Both the women are delineated as a stereotypical one with the beginning of the texts. But as the story moves forward, they break the conventional norms and strictures of their society. They start to discover and reshape themselves after realizing the facts they are facing long time. The study compares the feministic views of two prominent writers. Both the authors are conscious of the condition of women in their own times and try to break the prevailing progressive thoughts into their writings. This paper also persuades the readers to understand the concept of feminism in terms of literature.
Keywords: Comparative study, Disillusionment, Feminism, Self-realization, emancipation, revolt