Abstract:
This thesis examined the image of male gender in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class
Citizen and Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon. The purpose of this research work
was to explore how these two renowned female African writers present male gender
in their novels. In order to achieve this, the researcher focused on whether these two
novelists present men differently or similarly. Also, the study pays attention to how
cultural assumptions influenced the presentation of male gender in the two novels.
The theoretical framework that guided the direction of this thesis was structural
functional theory. The researcher carefully selected the two novels because they both
have African and European settings, therefore good for comparison. The research
design used for the thesis was qualitative approach. This study reveals that Emecheta
presents African men in a number of ways, notable among them are; they are seen as
decision makers who are expected to be celebrated and served by women, as people
who abuse the rights of women and value sons more than daughters. Amma Darko, in
contrast, presents African men as liars, exploiters, oppressors and enemies of women.
Similarly, it is revealed that both Emecheta and Darko presented African men as
people who see women as their own property and always want to control and
dominate them. Finally, it is revealed how cultures and traditions of African society
influence the roles of men and women. Some of the affected areas are education,
marriage, training of children, job opportunities, rights and responsibilities of
husbands and wives. The researcher got these findings through content analysis
where he examined all the major male and female characters. He also examined the
themes, settings and the language of two primary texts. In the light of the presentation
of African men in Second Class Citizen and Beyond the Horizon, the researcher
recommended that texts written by female writers should be used as literature texts in
our schools. Also, male writers should also recreate a new image for African men in
literary works in order to portray a positive image for men.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of English Education, Faculty of Foreign Languages Education, submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for award of the degree of Master of Philosophy (English Education) In the University of Education, Winneba
JULY, 2022