The Single and Multiple Melodies: A Comparative Reading of Traditional and Contemporary Feminist Writing
Abstract
This article juxtaposes traditional and contemporary East African feminist narratives with reference to Nuruddin Farah’s From a Crooked Rib and Nadifa Mohamed’s Orchard of Lost Souls. Most feminist narratives in East Africa directly confront patriarchal traditions with the least sensitivity to the masculine audience’s reaction. The writers adopt the Western strand of feminism that largely upholds gender stereotyping of the masculine gender and presentation of feminine gender as the innocent victims of patriarchy. A new generation of feminist writers however, refrain from the focus on patriarchy and express their subjects through multiple voices that turn their novels into great dialogues. This analytical study was carried out on novels by writers from East Africa to interrogate modes of narration by pioneer and contemporary feminists. Five novels by East African novelists were purposively sampled. In spite of most of the writers expressing feminist subjects, Nuruddin Farah’s From a Crooked Rib and Nadifa Mohamed’s Orchard of Lost Souls demonstrated the supposed diversity in the narrative mode. The study adopted the narrative analysis qualitative design. Data from secondary sources enabled the theoretical comprehension and qualitative analysis of primary texts. The study proceeded through close textual reading of the primary and secondary texts while Mikhail Bakhtin’s monologism and dialogism formed the theoretical basis of interpretation. It was found that most pioneer feminist writers adopted the monologic mode to impose feminist ideology while contemporary writers present the feminist voice as one of the many voices in conversation with other voices in the novel.
URI
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377232663_The_Single_and_Multiple_Melodies_A_Comparative_Reading_of_Traditional_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Writinghttp://repository.mut.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/6421