DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i09.010

Pages: 1782-1785

This paper is in the tradition of redressing the critical imbalance that has underestimated or even neglected African female writers by examining the message that Flora Nwapa, aesthetically, vehiculates through the characterization of her female characters in Efuru. The way Flora Nwapa is able to, creatively and aesthetically, portray her female characters to reflect her own socio cultural milieu and, often, her own personal experiences as a woman deserves a close attention. This is because African women writers, in general, and Flora Nwapa, in particular, are active agents of social change and as a result, they are able to publish novels with successful and enriching characterizations not only to reflect their socio cultural milieu but also to seek mutual understanding from the community and acceptance of the choices they make at a given period of time. Each and every female character, in Efuru, is carrying a particular message of the community to readers. Thanks to characterization, we are then able to understand the Igbo world views. For instance, characterization not only reveals the actions and reactions of the characters, but also it helps to ‘measure’ contextually the worth of the struggle of Flora Nwapa in liberating the women folk. Therefore, it is about understanding how women’s literature expresses and shapes women’s experiences and contributes to their feminist aesthetics.