Özet:

Women in Africa have been suffering at the hands of male patriarchy for so long and subjected to the oppression of race, gender, and class. The portrayal of the Black women in literary works merely as unfortunate and deplorable as they are subject to sexual and racial exploitation by the patriarchal members of the society. This article attempts to analyze Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Mariama Ba’s So Long A Letter from the perspective of feminism and to shed a light on how the female characters in these literary pieces endure abuse of various kinds inflicted by male patriarchy and how they display incredible and extraordinary determination to make comprehensive improvements in their respective lives. In Purple Hibiscus, Adichie challenges inhuman practices on women carried about by the menfolk, particularly on Mama (Beatrice Achike) by her husband. She often keeps quiet and does not reveal any details of physical abuse she receives from her husband and chooses to remind silent in the face of humiliation, victimization, and brutality to be perceived as a good woman. However, Adichie applauds female characters like Kambili and Aunty Ifeoma, who do not need men for their sustenance or keep themselves attached to men to assert their identity. In So Long a Letter, Mariam Ba warrants the reader’s admiration as well as the critics’ support by portraying female characters that freely speak their minds and act independently and successfully maintain the sense of their identity. Ba’s two leading female characters, Aissatou and Ramatoulaye, are portrayed as women who are ready to rebel against the smothering grip of patriarchy to prove their self-worth and to claim their independence.

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