The portrayal of the girl child in selected African female Bildungsromane (Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya)

This study is a comparative analysis of the African female Bildungsroman, or novel of growth and development. The study traces the textual construction of identity in selected texts by male and female authors writing in English and Swahili languages. The selected texts are: Said Ahmed Mohamed's Utengano, Suleiman Mohamed Suleiman's Nyota ya Rehema, Euphrase Kezilahabi's Rosa Mistika, Clara Momanyi's Tumaini, Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price, and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. By examining the complex interplay of culture, race, gender, historical context, and religious ideology, I reveal how these factors combine to condition the Bildung, or personal formation, of the protagonists. The study is an attempt to show how the nature of the female quest for personal development departs from the model established in the eighteenth century by Goethe in his Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship) , the prototype of the genre. While the patriarchal structures within many African societies seem to favor the development of the boy child, they become impediments to the girl child's quest for selfhood. Her search for self-actualization often opposes societal expectations, thus pitting her personal aspirations against those imposed by her society.; The study is divided into five chapters. Chapter One, the introduction, defines the term Bildungsroman, provides historical background, contextualizes the study, and presents the theoretical framework. Chapter Two deals with the developmental process within the Swahili community, a group that has very complex identity issues because of its mixed lineage with Arabs and their total embrace of Islam as a way of life. Written by male authors, the two novels in this chapter reveal how the rigidity of Swahili gender norms restricts the protagonists to conformity, sacrificing the self to facilitate reintegration into society. Chapter Three focuses on the post-colonial context, where the conflicts between modern and traditional social structures are seen as the main determining factors in the developmental process. Chapter Four examines self-discovery in the feminist Bildungsroman in the colonial and post-colonial context, as it is utilized to chart out a modern, self-determined girl child who transcends societal limitations and constraints.