The Making of the ' New Man ' in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ' s Americanah

Authors

  • Mukoi Musagasa Department of Literature, University of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

Abstract
This paper examines the making of a ' new man ' character in Adichie ' s
Americanah and discusses how such a moulded man integrates himself in
society and deals with other gendered worlds. The discussion shows how
much Adichie in the representation of ' new man ' character in her novel
rejects the naturalisation of the unchangeability of the male subject by
dramatizing how much the male ' s enactment of masculine-self is
contingent to the orientation one gets. In this paper, I establish that that
Adichie ' s representation of progressive ' new man ' character in her novel
does not only serve as a role model for ideal alternative masculinity, but
also re-invents a space necessary for a progressive female character to
belong in hetero-patriarchal setting of the novel. Although the
categorisation of modes of masculinity in this paper begins with Connell ' s
binary of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities, the objective of the
discussion is beyond such fixity. My interest in this paper is precisely on
the sets of masculinity which, although they divert from the hegemony,
the difference or the deficit of hegemonic masculinity does not suggest the
inferiority. The paper borrows Swain ' s (2006) "personalized
masculinities" to refer to softer and transgressive modes of masculinities
that are rebellious against the naturalisation of heteronormativity.
Key words:
New-Man, New-Woman, Progressive, Masculinity, Femininity
https://dx.doi.org/10.56279/ummaj.v9i1.4

Author Biography

Mukoi Musagasa, Department of Literature, University of Dar es Salaam

Mukoi Musagasa

Department of Literature University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

References

References

Adichie, C. N., 2014, Americanah, Anchor Books, a division of Random

House LLC, New York, NY.

Biller, H. B., 1968. A note on father absence and masculine evelopment in

lower-class Negro and White, Child Development , vol. 39, no. 3 , pp. 1003-

Connell, R., 1996. Teaching the boys: new research on masculinity, and

gender strategies for school, Teachers College Record, vol. 98, no. 2, pp. 206-

Gorman-Murray A. 2008, Masculinity and the home: a critical review and

conceptual framework, Australian Geographer Vol. 39, No.3, pp. 367-379.

Gottzen, L. 2011, Metaphors of masculinity: hierarchies and assemblages,

in A. Biricik and J. Hearn (eds), Gexcel Work in Progress Report (pp. 229-

, Vol. X, Theme 9: Gendered Sexualed Transnationalisations,

Deconstructing the Dominant: Transforming Men, "Centres" and

Knowledge/Policy/Practice, Centre of Gender Excellence, Linköping &

Örebro.

Kisembo, B., Magesa, L. and Shorter, A. 1998, African Christian marriage,

Paulines Publications Africa, Nairobi.

Lilenga, K., 2017, The (un)making of a man: fathers and sons in the

African novel, Journal of Humanities (Zomba), vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 26-44.

Minga, K. J. 2016, Masculinity in early African times: transfromational

presentation of Things Fall Apart. International Journal of Language, Literature

and Gender Studies (LALIGENS), vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 112-124.

Mugambi, H. N., 2010. Masculinity on trial: gender anxiety in African

song performance, in Mugambi, H.N and T.J. Allan (eds), Masculinities in

African literary and cultural texts (pp. 78-94), Ayebia Clarke, Oxfordshire.

Mutua, A. D. 2006, Progressive black masculinities, Routledge, New York,

NY.

Nadaswaran, S., 2011, Rethinking family relationship in third-generation

Nigerian women's writing, RELIEF, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 19-32.

Nfah-Abenyi, J. M. 1997,Gender in African women's writing, Indiana

University Press, Indiana, IN.

Ng'umbi, Y. C. 2017, Re-imagining family and gender roles in Aminatta

Forna's ancestor stones, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 86-99.

Nnaemeka, O. 1994, From orality to writing: African women writers and

the (re)inscription of author(s), Research in African Literature, vol. 25. no. 4,

pp. 137-157.

Ogundipe-Leslie, M. 1994, Recreating ourselves; African women and critical

transformations, African World Press, Trenton, NJ.

Ogunyemi, C. O. 1985, The dynamics of the contemporary black female

novel in English, Signs, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 63-80.

Okuyade, O. 2011, Narrating growth in the Nigeria female

Bildungsroman, The AnaChronist, vol.16, pp. 152-170.

Rich, A., 1986, Of women born: motherhood as experience and institution, W.W.

Norton, New York, NY.

Stratton, F. 1990, ' Periodic embosiments ' : a ubiquitous trope in African

men's writing, Research in African Literatures, vol. 21, no.1, p. 111-126.

Stratton, F. 1994, Contemporary African literature, Routledge, London.

Swain, J. 2006, Reflections on patterns of masculinity in school setting,

Men and Masculinities, vol. 8,

Downloads

Published

2022-08-16

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2022): Umma Journal of Contemporary Literature and Creative Arts

Section

Articles

License

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution License  that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See  The Effect of Open Access).