African Feminism/Womanism and Gender Complementarity in Ngugi wa Thiong'O’s Novels

Abstract

This paper deploys the postulations of African womanism/feminism to examine
gender complementarity in three of Ngugi wa Thiong'Os novels: The River
Between, A Grain of Wheat, and Petals of Blood. While the prominent role Ngugi
accords his female characters has been acknowledged and explored critically, how
he deploys the African feminist/womanist ideology in his writings, and uses his
writings to advocate for gender complementarity within the African socio-cultural
reality seems to have been ignored. This, however, should not be taken to mean
that critics have not at all acknowledged the gender complementarity phenomenon
in Ngugis works. The problem is that even when they do, it is usually subsumed
within the framework of a larger discourse. The significance of this paper,
therefore, lies in its elaborate examination of this subject in Ngugis aesthetic
universe using the theoretical lens of African womanism/feminism