Alienation and Women's Identity In Selected Novels by Bessie Head and Buchi Emecheta

Abstract

This thesis attempts to investigate the theme of alienation and African women's identity in Bessie Head's The Cardinals (1993) and A Question of Power (1974), in addition to Buchi Emecheta's Gwendolen (1989) and Second Class Citizen (1974). It aims at: studying the concept of alienation in the novels, explaining the factors that create this sense of estrangement in the female characters, and finally exploring ways to overcome alienation and reach self-assertion. Accordingly, this study proposes three facets of alienation: social, racial and sexual. Society with its conformism can lead to the marginalization of women who fail to fit its standards. Using Social-psychology, the alienating social processes such as conformism will be studied, in addition to exploring the states or syndromes of alienation including isolation and withdrawal from society.