POWER RELATIONS: A WOMANIST READING OF AKACHI ADIMORA-EZEIGBO’S HOUSE OF SYMBOLS

Abstract

African society is bipolarized along the social reality of gender. This has been affecting the perception of women in a phallocentric society. This situation has its reflection and realization in the attitude of men towards the personality of women.  Even in literary expressions, men have been dominating the scene until recently that women have taken up the scribal challenges of textualizing themselves through forms of literary media.  Since the time that women have taken up the challenges of self-representation in literary texts, there have been dialogic discourses in the thematic thrusts and literary criticism of African Literature.  It is on this basis that this study engages in a womanist reading of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s House of Symbols.  The paper examines the dialogic representation of the status of men and women in the text.  Like other womanist texts, the House of Symbols makes efforts to reposition the status of women viz-aviz the phallocentric standard of our contemporary socio-political realities.  Since the emergence of female voices in literary expressions, there have been proliferations of gender-based texts stating the cause and course of women’s burden in a phallocentric society.  It is therefore in the thinking of this paper that:Is there no sentimental re–representation of male and female characters in a gender–biased literature?  The paper some suggestions such as - Men should see women as partners in progress and not objects to be desired and possessed. Men need to collaborate with women to achieve home/national development. Women should strive to diligently excel in whatsoever they do in order to earn respect.