Language and Gender Representation in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Blessing U. Ijem and Isaiah I. Agbo

English Language Teaching, 2019, vol. 12, issue 11, 55

Abstract: This article examines the linguistic construction of gender in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. It shows how this reflects the social reality of the relationships between women and men in society, which is firstly structured in the unconscious mind. The examination of language use in constructing genders in the novel is important as it unveils the relationships between the male and the female in society. This is because gender representation is influenced by unconscious and hidden desires in man. This study specifically examines Achebe’s use of grammatical categories in the construction of the male and female genders in Things Fall Apart. To this end, it reflects the pre-colonial Igbo society in its socially stratified mode, which language served as the instrument for both exclusion and oppression of women. This article shows that the male and female genders dance unequal dance in a socially, politically and economically stratified society where the generic male gender wields untold influence over women in that pre-colonial Igbo society. The study further shows that Achebe used language in Things Fall Apart to glorify masculine gender while portraying the female gender as docile, foolish, weak and irresponsible second-class citizen.

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/download/0/0/41078/42449 (application/pdf)
https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/0/41078 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ibn:eltjnl:v:12:y:2019:i:11:p:55

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in English Language Teaching from Canadian Center of Science and Education Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Canadian Center of Science and Education ().