Shelling women for pleasure in Sunset at Dawn. An analysis of the abused woman in African literature

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Literature - Africa, University of Botswana, language: English, abstract: The African continent is synonymous with war and women are caught up in it in the perpetual role of the victim. African literature in the pre colonial and colonial period has tended to be very intransigent in its portrayal of females in times of conflict. The African writer has created a fragmented female. This character is often bartered, manipulated or presented as lovesick in conflict situations creating a flawed and destructive image of the African woman. I argue that writers of African literature exposing the violent conflict of colonialism and liberation have a pessimistic outlook on the role of women in war which has hindered the empowerment of women. I will use Psychoanalysis and its concept on the life and death instincts to account for why sex and identity dominates the portrayal of women in pre-colonial and colonial literature. African writers have created a situation where conflict necessitates a sexual definition of the female character. Women thus possess a paradoxical identity of being sensual and consuming of the male phallus which ultimately breaks and consumes them. The conflict resolution is such that sex seems to logically place and displace ideas of sexuality and its impact on the female character.