Women’s Withheld Subjectivity in Elichi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966) and Lynn Nottage’s Ruined (2007)

Abstract

This research paper aims at comparing women’s withheld subjectivity in two African works namely Elichi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966) and Lynn Nottage’s Ruined (2007). We have selected Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist theory as explained in her essay A Vindication of the Rights of Woman since some of its concepts suit to the subject treated. Within the novel and the play, the matter of women’s subordination is clearly demonstrated where the authors depicted the way women have been dominated by the harsh government led by men with the strict rules of the patriarchal societies. The first chapter is an attempt to prove how women resist and react to the cultural and masculine system of thought and literature and to the way women try to emancipate their identity, a vigorous action to challenge the power of men. In the second chapter, we have selected the theme of women’s right for equality which would be realized through education and the rejection of emotions by using rational thoughts as a solution to abolish the battle of gender discrimination.