Shifting gender roles: A critical analysis of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988) and Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly (2009).

Abstract

The subject of gender is an important part in the study of postcolonial societies. Post-colonial societies are the battlefields for the struggle for identity after the culmination of the imperialistic colonial institution. Therefore this study aims to uncoverthe interconnectedness of gender and culture and how identity informs the course of gender roles.This study advances that the drastic shift of gender roles was first recorded with the inception of colonialism in Africa as women began to reclaim a voice in society by moving from the domestic space to the public workforce and thus defied cultural norms. However the issue of identity is engraved with a violent and chaotic process in the wake of the double consciousness that haunts the postcolonial societies. The main concern of this study is how women are doubly oppressed by both patriarchy and an imperialist hegemony and how Western feminist ideals impart a false awareness in the woman’s quest for identity in postcolonial society. Also central to this study is the dawning that this double consciousness affects men as it also affects women and with such inevitable reality, the research traces the changes that manifest due to the commonness of double consciousness in both men and women. The study brings out these subjects through a critical analysis of two Zimbabwean female narratives, Dangarembga’s Nervous conditions (1988) and Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly(2009)