Periphery Challenging the Center: The Resurgence of African Women in Chinua Achebe’s Novels

Abstract

This paper focuses the relationship between the center and the periphery particularly after the end of colonial rule in the political sense of the term colonialism. The voices which emerged with unspeakable resonance, after colonialism came to an end, include the ethnic and racial minorities and women. This paper intends to highlight the emerging female voice in the Nigerian writings. For this purpose Achebe’s works present women as a strong voice of representation of African women. The colonial discourse has presented the African women as mute and dump, victim of male suppression and domination and savage local customs. This paper argues that while the native African women lived under a local system, what might be called repressive, nevertheless, they were not the silent other and had certain prerogatives and privileges which the English women never had in the Victorian society. However, it claims that Achebe in his novels tries to restore the status which once the African women had and at the same time he tries to focus on the resurgence of African women.