Feminist Aesthetics in Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again and Femi Osofisan’s Morountodun
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
This study examiners the aesthetics of feminism in African drama through a critical study of Temi Osofisan’s Morountodun and Ola Rotimi’s our I thus bands have gone mad Again. The work focuses on conscientizing women to rise up to the challenges in the society with understanding of the roles they could play in their community to make the society a better place. It also focuses on how women have struggled side by side with their male counterparts, against the general injustice and oppression that the few privileged impose on the majority underprivileged.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Feminism, the key concept of this study is something that is intertwined with the question of woman. It has its origin in the struggle for women’s rights and participation in the works of life feminism is a historically diverse and culturally varied international movement probing the “question of woman”. The growth of feminism in the world began in Europe and America in the nineteenth century when women became conscious of their oppression, inequality and marginalization and took steps to redress this form oppression.
Since, feminism means various things to different people, it becomes difficult to have a concise universal definition of the term while recognizing the implication of a since definition, the following definitions throw light on the concept of feminism. Barrow and Muburn (1990:20) define feminism as a “label for a commitment or movement to achieve equality for women”. J.A Cuddon (1991:338) also sees it as “an attempt to describe and interpret (or re-interpret) women’s experiences as depicted in various kinds of literature”. Ruth Sheila (1980:4) rightly observed in her work that feminists do not agree among themselves on one all-inclusive and university acceptable definition of the term. According to her, what feminism means to various people depends on ones political or sociological observations and goals, one’s understanding or interpretation of the word “woman” and several other factors. Feminism can be a perspective, a world-view, a political theory, or a kind of activism. Feminism is concerned with females not just as a biological category, but the female gender as a social category. They also share the view that woman’s oppression is tied to their sexuality. This is because woman and men’s biological differences are reflected in the organization of society most especially in the African settings. Based on these differences, women are treated as interior to men, whether as a theory, a social movement or a political movement. Generally, feminism focuses on women’s experiences and also high-lights various forms of oppression which the female gender is subjected to in the society.
Forms of feminism
Many forms of feminism have been identified by various scholars. They include Marxist/socialist Feminism, Humanist Feminism, Liberal Feminism, Radical feminism and Analytical Feminism among others, for the benefit of this study, we shall briefly discuss some of the major forms of feminism in other to facilitate our attempts at situating feminism with the African context.
Marxist feminism: This brand of feminism believes in the inter locking relationship between class gender oppression. They extend the critique of class developed by Marx and Engels into the feminist history of materials and economics subordination of women. They point to the sexual division of labour and the implications of this division for the differences in power between men and women. Marxist feminism seeks to determine the ways which the institution of the family and women domestic labour are structured and how the structure contributes to the subjugation of women. Marxist feminist believe that economic power is the only way proletarian culture can effectively checkmate subjugation.
Humanist feminism: They believe so much in the universality of women’s oppression regardless of class and race. They argue for a concept of self which is unified despite the fragmentation resulting from the cultural violence of oppression. In the humanist feminists view, all women are oppressed because they are women despite class and racial distinctions. The exploitation of women is neither a racial or class phenomenon but a gender phenomenon. In other words, women’s subjugation is gender based.
CHAPTER THREE
This chapter examines women and their social struggle in Morountodun.
Women and their Social Struggle in Morountodun
Femi Osofisan’s play, Morountodun; is a historical play that re-enact the farmers’ revolt of 1969. This revolt is popularly know as the
‘Agbekoya uprising’, in which ordinary farmers in the western part of the country rose up and confronted the state. We presented in this play, two opposing sides. The farmers (who represent the oppressed class) and the ruling class (the oppressed). The farmers revolt against the state because they.
….tend the yams but dare not taste. They raise chicken, but must be content with wind in their stomach. And then, when they return weary from the market, the tax man is waiting with his bill (P.66).
The government, through various agents like the marketing board, the sanitary inspectors and the tax men, threatens the existence of the farmers who ironically, are the producers of the nation’s wealth.
Unable to bear this anymore, the farmers, under the leadership of Baba and Marshal, decide to take up arms against government.
Morountodun is a revolutionary play, but our major concern in the play is the social role or struggle played by women (as symbolized through Titubi) in the course of the revolution.
The play opens with a theatre group trying to put up a play about the farmers’ uprising. The directors is on stage, giving last minute instructions to the cast and crew members, and telling the audience what the play is going to be about. In the course of doing this, Titubi (the spoilt daughter of a business tycoon) saunters in with her courage of women and challenges the director of the play. She, in fact, attempts to disrupt the play, insisting that the play insults her class and so must be stopped.
CHAPTER FOUR
MADNESS AS A METAPHOR FOR PATRIARCHY IN OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN
Ola Rotimi’s play, Our Husband has gone mad again, depicts some socio-political problems such as; the danger and problem of polygamy, wife inheritance, Khakistocracy, uneducated political leaders and selfishness of our leaders.
The serious intention of the play is powerfully depicted by the fact that the character of Lekoja-Brown and Liza undergoes a land of transformation. The farmer is content to be a humble farmer and the latter is prepared to practice medicine as a mere farmer’s wife. This may be a good solution to individual problems but one wonders if Sikira is the answer to Nigeria’s politics.
Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is a play that one can’t but appreciate the play’s fine disregard for western realism. It carries a genuinely crazy West African Scenario.
The play is, satirical one. It centres on “Khakistocracy” that is, the act of in which military men vie for power again in the democratic system, but our major concern in the play is madness as a metaphor (as symbolized through major Lekoja-Brown) in the course of his political ambition.
CHAPTER FIVE
Conclusion
This essay has attempted to give us a textual analysis of feminist aesthetics in the play of Ola Rotimi and Femi Osofisan’s Moraintodun and “Our Husband has gone mad again”.
It has focused on feminist aesthetics and different playwrights, both male and female and this study paid a critical attention on the aesthetics used in Ola Rotimi and Femi Osofisan’s texts in order to pass the message of equality and liberation to the entire oppressed women of Africa.
Femi Osofisan is not only a revolutionist, a rebel, a non-conformist, an advocate for the down trodden but there is also a uniqueness in his writings, which makes his works different from another playwright and the uniqueness is brought out by the manipulation of cultural traditions in his own writings.
Ola Rotimi often examined Nigeria’s history and Local Traditions in his works.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Source
- Ola Rotimi (1977) Our husband has gone mad again. Yale and Boston University, Produced 1966, Published
- Osofisan, Femi (1982) Morountodun and other plays. Nigeria: Longman
Secondary Texts
- Achebe, Chinua (1957) Things fall Apart (London: Heinemann) Alkali, Zaynab (1984) The Still Born (London: Drmbeat, Longman) Amadi, Elechi (1975) The Concubine (London: Heinemann)
- Ba, Mariama (1982) So long a letter (Ibadan: New Born press)
- Duro Ladipo: Moremi (translated by Joel Yinka Adedeji, University of Ibadan 1972).
- Ekwensi, Cyprian: Jagua Nana (London: Heinemann)
- Emecheta, Buchi (1977) Secondary class citizen (London Frontana/ Collins)
- Encyclopedia of feminist theories edited lorrame code: (London, Routtedge 2000)
