FEMALE AFRICAN BILDUNGSROMAN: RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY IN NERVOUS CONDITIONS OF TSITSI DANGAREMBGA, DEVIL ON THE CROSS OF NGUGI WA THIONG'O, AND NIKETCHE: A STORY OF POLYGAMY BY PAULINA CHIZIANE.
Bildungsroman; African novel; literature and identity; literature and resistance; literature and gender; literature and ethnicity; post-colonial literature
This study aims to analyze apprenticeship novels with black women who try to establish themselves in a pot-colonial and patriarcal, Building their identities and trajectories as a resistance to the dominant ideology, as protagonists. The chosen corpus are Nervous Conditions by Zimbabuana Tsitsi Dangarembga, Devil on the Cross by Quenian Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Niketche: Uma história de poligamia by Mozambican Paulina Chiziane. The ai mis to comparatively analyze the novels in chronological order of the protagonist’s age, which corresponds to the chronology of the decolonization processo of the African countries: Tambu, in Nervous Conditions, is pre-teen in a country (then Rodesia) which was still a colony; Wariinga in Devil on the Cross is a single Young Woman in a recently independente Quenia; and Rami, from Niketche, whose narrative trajectory occurs twenty five Years after the Independence war in Mozambique, is a middle-aged Woman, married and a mother. The aim is, through these investigations, to elaborate a panorama of their representation of the colonization process in African countries and the female black African experience in apprenticeship novels, analyzing how they relate the character’s development and the historical moment of their countries. The theoretical frame utilized relies on authors such as Wilma Patrícia Maas e Cíntia Schwantes as to the concept of Bildungsroman, Judith Butler for the gender studies, Stuart Hall for identity and Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe on postcolonial studies and race.