AJOSE EZEKIEL SEGUN

English Language

At the English Language department office

Appointment on Visitation important

#	Certificate	School	Year
1.	M.A. (English Literature)	University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos	2016

Yerima's Ambivalent Portrayal of Patriarchal Oppression in The Wives and The Sisters

The Chapter examines the two works in light of what we consider Yerima's ambivalence on the question of women oppression. Our argument is that whereas Yerima's ouevre demonstrates his concern with women oppression, many of his works feature weak female characters who are als complicit in their own oppression as they  reinforce, rather than subvert, patriarchy.

Our methodology consists mainly in subjecting The Wives and The Sisters to close reading to uncover textual evidence of the playwright's ambivalence in representing women oppression viz-a-viz patriarchy, measured in terms of the female characters' degree of gaining agency for their social and economic emancipation.. 

in doing this, we examine some other Yerima's plays like Jakadiya and Aetu that feature female characters who gain agency and subvert patriarchy as Aeyu does, or succumb to the overarching dominance of patriarchy as typified by Jakadiya.

The conclusion we reach is that textual independence and freedom which usually dominates discussions of women oppression will amount to nothing if no extrinsic measures are taken to address the entrenched alienation of women from the society's economic structure. In our view, men run roughshod over women because in the main, they control the means of production and distribution.

AJOSE EZEKIEL is a Lecturer II at the Department of English Language

AJOSE has a M.A. in English Literature from University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos