Linguo-Literary Reflections of Feminism in the Works of Ifeoma Okoye

Abstract

The thesis is a feminist stylistic study which used the works of Ifeoma Okoye as a case study for a reassessment of the feminist discourse. It aimed at examining and unravelling how Ifeoma Okoye deployed language and style in her works to establish a non- radical and non-rebellious feminist message which preached complementarity of the sexes. It could be said that radical feminism had yielded little dividends in Africa and this was not unconnected with the fact that female radicalism, either in words or in deed did not conform with the African cultural values and realities. In view of this, there was a need to redirect attention to an alternative feminist stylistic approach which was devoid of radical and confrontational tendencies. Consequent upon this, the researcher sought to address the issue. Since language and style were the major weapons in the dissemination of the feminist message, the discussion in this thesis therefore centred on language, style and feminism. The objectives of the thesis therefore included; (i) to argue that Okoye was an advocate of complimentarity feminism through a lingo-literary analysis of her works, (ii) to determine that the linguistic and literary features in Okoye’s novels revealed her feminist concerns, (iii) and to reveal the author’s theme of non-confrontational and non-radical feminism through a stylistic and textual analysis of her works, especially with emphasis on linguistic mechanisms and theories such as foregrounding, diction, authorial voice, sentence patterns, paragraph structure, punctuation and cohesion. These linguistic mechanisms and theories served as our framework. For the methodology of the thesis, the researcher adopted textual analysis of the primary sources which were the texts of Ifeoma Okoye as well as library and desk research to explore extensive literatures on the concept of feminism, language and style which constituted the research focus. In addition to this, the researcher also relied heavily on sources such as critical works, journals and other scholarly articles in the related areas. There was also an interview with the author under review to gather authentic information on her works. The research argued and found that Ifeoma Okoye’s stylistic approach upheld a brand of feminism which was sensitive to African cultural values and tradition. It was concluded that this brand of feminism was workable in the African context and capable of rapidly advancing the ideologies of feminism.