Abstract
This paper examined the transformation of women from social submission to personal empowerment in Ma vie m’appartient by Ihechi Nkoro and Chaque chose en son temps by Lynn Mbuko. The study investigated how gendered social conditioning shapes women’s life choices in postcolonial African contexts marked by early marriage, polygamy, ethnic endogamy, and excessive reproductive expectations. Despite the growing body of scholarship on African women’s writing, limited attention has been paid to comparative studies of empowerment narratives in contemporary Anglophone and Francophone African fiction. Even less attention has been devoted to interdisciplinary frameworks that connect African feminist criticism with capability and critical consciousness theories. The study therefore adopted a comparative literary methodology anchored in postcolonial feminist criticism and African gender theory. It drew on the conceptual insights of Deniz Kandiyoti’s notion of “patriarchal bargaining,” Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s framework of African feminist self recreation, and Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí’s critique of the colonial construction of gender hierarchies.
Through close textual analysis, the study demonstrated that in both texts, education, professional training, and networks of female solidarity serve as key mechanisms through which women renegotiate patriarchal constraints. Nkoro’s play highlights resistance to imposed marriage and ethnic exclusivism through Ezinma’s eventual educational and professional self realization, whereas Mbuko’s drama presents recovery, mentorship, and institutional care as pathways to empowerment, as illustrated by Zénabou’s recovery and training as a nurse. A comparative reading revealed that although the protagonists initially internalize patriarchal expectations, their encounters with supportive female figures and educational opportunities enable them to reclaim autonomy over their bodies, careers, and marital choices. The study concluded that Nkoro and Mbuko reimagine womanhood not as a predetermined social role but as an evolving process of self assertion negotiated through education, resilience, and conscious agency.
Keywords: African women’s writing, Comparative literature, Postcolonial feminism, Education, Empowerment
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21215538
Authors:
Letitia Uloma Egege, Ph.D
University of Uyo
Akwa Ibom State
ORCID ID: 0009-0006-7287-0461
+2348037827663
Copyright © [2026] The Author(s). Published by the Journal of People and Worldviews (JPW). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited.