The Violation of Women’s Rights in African Novel Faceless and Women at Point Zero Portrayed
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The main objective of the study is to ascertain how African novels such as faceless and women at point zero portrayed the violation of women right in African novel. Specific objective is to examine:
- How the violation of right of women is being highlighted in faceless Amma Dark Novel.
- How the violation of right of women is being highlighted in women at point zero Novel.
- To compares and contrast the way the Africa novel such as faceless and women at point zero highlighted violation of human right.
CHAPTER TWO
Woman at Point Zero
Woman at Point Zero is a novel written by Nawal El Saadawi who is often called the mother of Arab Feminism. This novel is based on the true event where the writer meets Firdaus, the protagonist of this novel in a jail in Egypt. The writer got very much attracted towards Firdaus as she was the only person she has ever met in her life who wanted to die.
She didn’t even appeal for life time imprisonment instead of the death sentence. She was a very quiet girl who just had one wish to die. The writer got so enchanted to know her story, but Firdaus refused to meet her like she refused to meet others. But the writer never gave up the wish to meet her and finally she got the chance as Firdaus agreed to meet her. Firdaus’s life was full of struggle and sufferings caused to her by the males in her life. This made her hate men so much that she just wanted to die to free herself from this society which is patriarchal. “But with each of men I ever knew, I always overcome by a strong desire to lift my arm high up over my head and bring my hand smashing down on his face”(112).
Firdaus narrated her story to the writer by putting light on various aspects of life prevalent in the society which dominates women at every step.
Female Mutilation
Female mutilation is one curse present in the society which is prevalent in almost all the African and Middle East countries. This practice is nowhere present in Islam but the irony is that it is conducted around the world in the name of Islam and the women being ignorant accepts it without hesitation as they think if they will speak against this practice, they will go against their religion. This is the monopoly of the males to dominate the women so that they should not consider themselves superior to the males. According to UNICEF’s report entitled Changing a harmful social convention: Female Genital Mutilation in Innocenti Digest, it is argued that every year almost 3 million girls are subjected to this cruel practice which is often life threatening to them. This report also stated that this practice is not even prevalent in Islam.
Same happened with Firdaus also. She was just a child and one day her aunt came and just cut her clitoris and she being a kid only thought that she did some mistake and her mother gave her punishment. She cried all night in pain but there was nobody to take care of her. This is very sad. The mother who has gone through the same pain makes her daughter also to suffer the pain.
Education
Education is one of the most important issues raised by feminists across the globe as when women will get education; they will be aware of their rights and can stand on their own as independent women. But the irony is that girls are mostly deprived of education and made to believe that women and education are not meant to go together. This is also a monopoly of the men to make women realise that they are inferior to the males and cannot match their standards.
CHAPTER THREE
MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN FACELESS
To begin with, women are marginalized almost everywhere. Evidently, the titles of fictional narratives produced by female writers across Africa (Double Yoke; Second Class Citizen; Women are Different; One is Enough; The Slave Girl; So Long A Letter; The Joys of Motherhood; The Stillborn, Faceless…) suffice to portray the moral tragedy of innocent individuals. Each title, according to
Nnolim (2009:140), “reflects just one or more phase in the brutalized plight of women in the hands of the ‘enemy’ man.” Juliana (1975:5) rationalizes that: Whether she is elevated to the status of a goddess or reduced to the level of a prostitute, the designation is degrading, for he [man] does the naming. Whereas her experience as a woman is trivialized and distorted. Metaphorically, she is of the highest importance, practically she is nothing. She has no autonomy, no status as a character, for her person and her story are shaped to meet the requirements of his [man’s] vision. One of these requirements is that she provides attractive packaging. She is thus constructed as beauty, eroticism, fecundity- the qualities the male Self values most in the female Other.
CHAPTER FOUR
PORTRAYAL OF A FAILED GOVERNMENT
As human beings live in a society, there are, certainly, relations and interrelations between people who live together. Naturally, as people come from different socio cultural backgrounds with different material conditions and speaking different languages; it follows that their worldviews, thoughts, visions, feelings, likes and dislikes are different. Also, knowing that one cannot, normally, do whatever pleases him or her, no matter how rich or powerful he or she is, then the power belongs to the government, an organized institution, to ensure the basic needs of the population such as education, health care, social justice, security… irrespective of sex and as well as develop strategies to ensure a better living condition to its population.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
A saying goes on that “If lions do not have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always keep glorifying the hunters” Amma Darko has certainly the saying in mind and then she works adequately to prove wrong all those who argue that the African women do not need liberation. Since modern academia describes human societies in relational terms, all women bear certain difficulties in relation to men. The research has proved that patriarchy, tradition, neocolonialism, gender imperialism, failed leadership, all combined to act against the African women’s self-assertion. That is, certainly, why African women’s texts have been concerned, explicitly or implicitly, with change. Darko informs her readers and society, at large, that the African women’s conceptualization of freedom is not based on the erosion of her feminine attributes and outlook but in her ‘ability’ to go to school, to work, to voice her opinions (her likes and dislikes). For such basic needs to be effective, Darko utters a wake- up call to the government, which has a tremendous role to play in it. The government should not lose its priorities and become deaf to the cries of the victims (women). As a result, both men and women should shoulder responsibilities and work jointly for the benefit of a society without dis-cri-mi-na-tion.
REFERENCES
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