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Raising Women’s Consciousness Towards Transformation in Nigeria: The Role of Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Grace E. Okereke
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Extract

This paper illuminates the marginalization or absenting of the female from transformational processes in Nigeria evident in male-authored works, specifically the novel. This has engendered the woman writer’s creative response to the need for consciousness raising towards female capabilities, by redefining the female as an achiever in multiple transformational spaces—cultural, social, economic, educational, political. The paper argues that literature has played and is still playing a major role in female consciousness raising towards the transformation of Nigerian society.

Consciousness denotes awareness. Thus, to be conscious is to attain a state of awareness. Given that “the locus of consciousness [is] the psyche,” consciousness raising should re-educate and re-structure the psyche towards a growing awareness. Transformation connotes change in all spheres of life—the cultural, social, economic, educational, political, etc.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 1997 , pp. 28 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1997 

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Footnotes

*

Dr. Grace Okereke teaches English and Literary Studies at the University of Calabar in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

References

Notes

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