Cultural Hybridity as a Panacea to marginalization and Subjugation: A Reading of Ogola’s the River and the Source and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

The under- representation of women in national, social, political and economic affairs in postcolonial African countries is a major problem. Women are marginalized and subjugated in society because of gender inequality. This contributes to women’s search for identity in their societies. This representation of women’s search for identity becomes a tool for enhancement of denied autonomy that is represented through writing. It is implicit that the woman is viewed within the prototype of “Self†and “Other†in the expression of personal autonomy; hence woman’s search for self-identity mediates between the “Self†and “Other.†These binary oppositions of “Self†and “Other†make postcolonial theoretical criticism a relevant tool of analysis with regard to the development of the female self and national identity. This is because postcolonial theory is concerned with identity, formation and construction in regard to marginalized groups. It is argued that in a colonial state, the Africans are the “Other†than the whites while in a patriarchal society women are the “Other†than men. Therefore, post-colonial theory is suitable in the interrogation of women’s marginalization and subjugation in African societies such as Nigeria and Kenya, where women are viewed as relative to man and without a voice. This paper, thus, develops on the premise that cultural hybridity is the panacea to marginalization and subjugation in society. In this paper, I explore how Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun and Ogola in The River and the Source, indict patriarchal order in their societies. The paper is an investigation of the development of the female self which sets out to criticize patriarchal gendered perspectives that undermine women in society. In the paper, I analyze how the two writers deploy cultural hybridity strategies to bring women’s self-perspective on board to address their identity with regard to equal gender representation, in national, social, economic and political affairs.