Agency and Representation of Female Characters in Selected African Literary Texts: A Study of Agency in Selected Texts of African Literature

Abstract

This study examined how each female character's sense of self contributes to the formation of agency. It makes the case that women's agreement and collusion in their own subordination are implied everywhere feminist intellectuals embrace male hegemony as the all-powerful ruling principle of androcentric power systems. In a solely library-based study, three novels written by African authors were analyzed utilizing a feminist theoretical framework which affected women literature who were lacked empowerment. Given their superior comprehension of social relationships due to their insider-outsider social location, oppressed people are charged with building their own revolution. This theory's concept of epistemic advantage was highly important to this undertaking. In the findings, the study's conclusions highlight two main categories of feminine reactions to patriarchal authority. The non-agentive female characters who are effectively victims of dominance relationships and their agentive counterparts who overcome the same strong pressures are the two types of femininity that are discussed in Chapter 2. According to chapter three, actors must use their own free will, willpower, and dedication to pursue the ideal of agency, which is neither inherent nor granted. In accordance to the study's findings in chapter four, women's traditionally undervalued selfhood offers both enabling and limiting opportunities for the exercise of situated agency that can transcend systemic barriers to humanist ideals. It also confirms that an actor's level of success is determined by their own volition and active participation. The study comes to the conclusion that any social justice initiative that aims to achieve significant and long-lasting results in support of women's empowerment and liberation must leverage women's sense of self and raise their motivation in the involvement of literature.