Browsing by Author "Wikedzi, Edson"

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    The portrayal of female characters in atilio tagalile’s endless toil
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2014) Wikedzi, Edson
    This study explores how Atilio Tagalile’s Endless Toil portrays female characters following the varied people’s attitudes and perspectives with regard to women and hence, their representation in literary works. The aim of this study was to analyse the portrait with which female characters are identified in the text. The inquiry is probed through a textual analysis of the above text in which information was collected through close reading of the primary text and examined in the light of African feminist literary perspective and documentations from other scholarly studies. The findings from textual analysis show that some female characters are positively while others are negatively represented. Positive representations include active women who challenge oppressive African traditional practices such as arranged marriages and harassing widows. Other female characters are hardworking, wise, tolerant, respected, generous and children carers as well as being role model in good moral values. The negative portraits include women as witches, prostitutes, slanderers, gossips and victims of oppressive cultural practices. This negative image is influenced by societal gender stereotyping aggravated by patriarchal machinations. Thus, the author interrogates and gives them voices by empowering women through education enabling them to challenge the entrenched patriarchal machinations. It is recommended that a study be resumed on Tagalile’s Endless Toil in a broader perspective through combining both female and male characters portraits using postcolonial and or gender studies theory (ies) as identified by the researcher.