The Image of Women in Es’kia Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979)

Many literary texts by African male writers were written in the 1960s and 1970s to decry the governance of African political rulers, a governance based on abuse of power, bribery, self-enrichment and dictatorship, among other vices. African masses who thought that the replacement of the white rulers by indigenous politicians, following the independences, would be mean a new and better governing system, have been simply disillusioned. Among these literary texts is Mphahlele’s Chirundu (1979). But, can Chirundu not be also classified among literary texts such as Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel (1962), Onuora Nzekwu’s Highlife for Lizards (1965), Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966) … in which feminists find a sexist perspective of the authors? From a feminist perspective, this article is going to deal with the image of women in Chirundu. Based on culture, sociology and psychology as theories and feminism as literary criticism, this study will firstly deal with the stereotypes about women and then analyze the latter’s victimization