Women On Women The Stereotyping Of Female Characters In The Popular Fiction Of Northern Nigerian Women Writers

📄 Project Abstract

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of writing by women authors in Northern Nigeria. This energetic spurt of creative activity is especially noticeable in what is called popular fiction. It has been asserted that Nigerian female writers often react against the chauvinist - cast character stereotypes of women in the male dominated Nigerian literature. For example Flora Nwapa's Efuru and Idu are direct reactions against writers like Chinua Achebe's inadequate portrayal of lgbo women in eastern Nigeria. If Nigerian female writers like Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Zaynab Alkali have tried their utmost to correct the Nigerian male literary hegemony's stereotypes, how have the writers of popular fiction fared? Popular fiction appears to be a genre of creative writing usually ignored by critics. Perhaps due to the fact that it does not consciously aspire to 'elitism' in its literary styles. Critics who give it attention do so in order, it seems to castigate its forms as inferio...