The Impact of Women in Northern Nigeria Novels: Reflections From Zaynab Alkali’s Cobwebs Andother Storiesand Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apples

Abstract

For no fault of the women, society and men have come up with beliefs that have overtime been used to undermine the roles and status of women in society. In most cases, the women are described as the “weak’ and vulnerable”. This belief promotes the idea of patriarchy in society. Early literary writings in Northern Nigeria project patriarchy through the disdainful indifference and cruelty that the men characters subject the women characters to (if they ever appear). However, with the introduction of feminism as a literary ideology, conceptions on the roles and status of women began to change. The emergent trend as it affects the representation of women in subsequent Northern Nigeria novels is therefore, examined through Zaynab Alkali’s Cobwebs and Other Stories (1997). and Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apples (1994) This study focuses on the novelists’ use of feminism as an ideology to underscore the need for women liberation from the shackles of societal inhibitions and patriarchal domination that have continued to dwarf the potentials, abilities and capabilities of women in Northern Nigeria overtime. Indeed, that they have been described as mothers, housekeepers and house wives whose voices really do not matter in the scheme of things in society is what the contemporary literary works under this study have come to challenge.