CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN WOMEN’S WRITINGS: A POSTCOLONIAL FEMINIST STUDY OF SEFI ATTA’S THE BEAD COLLECTOR

Abstract

Women writers have employed various ways of continuing with the
depiction of some of the issues that are prominent in their writings
through which the plights of women are represented. While other
women writers’ works are devoid of women oppression, violence and
abuse, writers like Atta continue with the long-held style of focusing
on women emancipation along with the themes of subjugation and
violence as depicted in The Bead Collector. In view of this, this paper
seeks to show how women in the twenty first century still focus on
women emancipation with a slight change in thematic concern. The
study uses Postcolonial Feminist theory for explication because it
uncovers multiple realties and roles so that all voices may be heard.
Postcolonial feminism dissolves the universal subject and the
possibility that women speak in a unified voice or that they can be
universally addressed. Using Atta’s, The Bead Collector, the study
asserts that women’s writings are changing, they are not the same and
the writers do not strictly focus on gender issues. The change in the
thematic preoccupation of Atta which touched on Nigerian History
indicates the recent shift or transformation in Atta’s writing
particularly in terms of thematic concern.