A Feminist Analysis of the Changing Roles of Women in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Anthills of the Savannah

Abstract

Chinua Achebe is one of the pioneering figures of African Fiction. In his several critical essays and interviews Achebe has discussed the role of an author belonging to a postcolonial country, and declared that he writes his fiction with a definite role. He has penned five novels including his masterpiece Things Fall Apart (1958) in which Achebe, with his realism, has taken up the task of telling his people the greatness and weaknesses of their Ibo culture. Here, the object of his criticism is the colonizer British exercising power under the guise of a civilizing mission. On the other hand, in one of his most discussed novels Anthills of the Savannah (1987) he takes the role of a conscience builder in a new nation engulfed in cutthroat power politics; and the object of his criticism shifts to his own people, the corrupt educated elite and military officials who have failed to contribute in nation building. However, the role of women in Nigerian society is also one of the prominent issues depicted significantly in both these celebrated novels. The paper focuses on a feminist analysis of these novels with the aim to find out the changing roles of women in Nigerian society depicted in these novels. It takes recourse to the method of explication and close reading of these primary texts and the secondary data in the light of Feminist Criticism.