Faculty Mentors
Dr. Eustace Palmer
Abstract
In assessing the African novel from a twenty-first century Western perspective, the tendency inevitably arises to interpret the culture as inherently bearing an excessive force of patriarchal subjugation against which all African women must struggle. Perhaps such a reading is not entirely unwarranted, but if this is the chosen lens for interpretation, it then becomes necessary distinguish the author’s beliefs from those represented in the cultural attitudes of their text. In failing to make this ideological distinction between the world of the novel and the world of the novelist, it becomes easy to err in the way of too readily assuming that the literary treatment of culture and tradition in African must necessarily promote an anti-feminist agenda, when actually the opposite may be more accurate.
Recommended Citation
Brogdon, Joseph M.
(2012)
"Reverential Feminism: (Re) Considering the Status of Women in the African Novel,"
The Corinthian: Vol. 13, Article 7.
Available at:
https://kb.gcsu.edu/thecorinthian/vol13/iss1/7