ESSAY TOPIC
GENDER ANALYSIS ON SEFFI ATTAH ‘S EVERYTHING GOOD WILL COME
(A). SYNOPSIS OF THE TEXT
Sefi Atta’s everything good will come is a narration of the consciousness of a growing child. The narration
is in the first point of view. The writer made it a point of duty to present the central character’s
consciousness boldly as she matures to become conscious of the African woman.
“In my country, women are praised the more
they surrender their right to protest in the end they may die
with nothing but selflessness to passion to their daughters, a startling legacy that tears down a perched
throat”… (177)
The novelist used the historical knowledge of a post-colonial Nigerian experience as narrated by Enitan
protagonist, who realized the marginalization of women.
This novel enlightens readers about the happenings of Nigerian states as well as draws readers into its
historical contextual environment and the attendant emotional and structural break down of human
relationships. Enitan is born into a Nigerian state riddled with ethnic and religious differences; these
religious and ethnic differences are however stiffed into cataclysmic emotion when political underpinning is
considered. The narrator understanding of the unnecessary centre of Nigerian state by the colonial masters,
without taking cognizance or the ethnic differences prevalent in divers’ societies is valid, even in todays’
work.
For so many Africans, growing up wasn’t easy; they were made to become “born again” by the wheels of
the cane in the name of corporal punishment and discipline. The African child is also left to find out things
for him or herself. This leads to questioning the unpredictable of moral upbringing.
Only the strong would survive, the rest would spend their lives searching for initiatives. This was what it
took to raise an African child, a village of bearter, and yet if someone put their hands around a child’s neck,
and applied the slightest pressure … (133)
Enitan also finds herself struggling with the concept of religion and morality. The incessant conflicts in her
family further heightened the deteriorating health of her sickle-cell brother, who eventually passed on, is
worthy of mention. Her mother an escapist, seeks succor from marginalization and a broken marriage, in a
white garment church, she transforms from the once glowing young wife into a “wild Christian; a strict and
bottled admixture of holiness and bottled-up grievances. But she however still holds on to traditional beliefs
as she kills a fowl to rescue her daughter fertility.
Enitan grows into womanhood under the influence of her carefree childhood friend Sheri who lends her a
shoulder in her search of “womanish freedom.” She is made to realize the limitation of the female gender; a
situation where she is reserved for the status quo from childhood: a shallow education limited by dreams of
childbirth, wedding and graduation, finally a ridiculous transfer to the royal office of the kitchen.
She learned forward. “Maybe you don’t know this because you were raised by your Father, but let me tell
you, now, to save you from unnecessary headache in the future. Forget that nonsense. Education cannot
Change what’s inside a person’s veins… (16)
Governmental issues are on the front burner of the novel as she harps on the manipulation of the
constitution by politicians and ruling hands. The author also makes worthy mention of the inconsistences of
tradition. Political will is being transferred from the hands of corrupt politicians to the hands of hearthardened military coup-plotters who are bent on arresting, manning and eliminating helpless civilians. The
military barges into the hallowed gates of leadership, their reason being that the politicians were corrupt but
their “reign” was uncensored, unchecked and unencumbered.
Hassan, a brigadier Sheri gets involved with, represents not only the power opulence of military rule in the
military regimes but also their chauvinism. In fact, he portrayed the archetypal male who limits the
aspiration of women: who sees them as slaves and “commodities or thing flies”
After what my eyes have seen? If am not crazy, what else will I be? He is jealous of me. Can you believe it?
He is jealous of my success. With all he has. He wants me to have nothing, except what he gives me… (170)
The problem or crash between Sheri, and her man or husband ensured after brigadier Hassan made his
intention clear to Sheri. He wanted her to stop her business and get fully entangled in the home chores but
she desired the opposite. It was so uncalled for that Hassan hit Sheri as their sharp misunderstanding
increased to a greater range. Sheri who has white blood running in her vain could not bear the sight of such
hitting, that she struck brigadier Hassan with a pot of soup. It is obvious an ideal African woman won’t hit
back at her husband rather she runs amok in anger or apply another measure to have him punished. Rarely
would African woman confront her man in such provoking situation except those who have drunk from the
well of civilization. Enitan envisaged her friends’ capacity to resist this ugly scene the way she did.
The man is a coward that is why he hit me “(170)
It is only a coward that beats a woman but this understanding seems not to govern the minds of average
African men in their treatment of women.
The novel Everything Good Will Come,also extrapolates on the life of the artist and how the economy
determines their livelihood. This artist is left to wallow in poverty amid surplus creating skills. They are not
totally accepted in a society where money is a basis for corporation, friendship and societal acceptance, all
thanks to the politicians. This artist is emotional and caring but most importantly, sympathetic about the
suffering of the populace, that is what led uncle Alex, Enitan father’s friend, in the first part of the novel
1971 to join the civil war. Uncle Alex will remind readers of one of Nigeria’s poets, Christopher Okogbo.
But in the same vein, the artist also leads a careless life, as Mike Mukoro reflects an artist who not only
engages in the act of creative drawings and fine sculpting but also involves in flirtation ardour.
Another inevasible part of the work everything good will come, is the showcase of Lagos life in both “the
good old “the “the bad old” the socio-economic travails of the middle class logicians who like to show the
exquisite places and purchase suspected expensive commodities. Activism is also a constant message in the
work, as a female character plays her role in national emancipation. Amidst her sufferings she forges ahead
and wins new converts of which none of them was Enitan. She however admits that it is not worth dying for
a country that does not appreciate the developmental activities of her life is another serious issue mentioned
in this work. Here, women are treated like rags and broken teaspoons. This perhaps might make the reader
pardon the author’s strong feministic tendencies.
Sefi Atta’s debut novel entitled Everything Good Will Come have the following theme occur in the
novel: marriage, religion, culture, political instability, to mention just a few.
Theme of Marriage
As is customary with the African novel, marriage is deeply-rooted in the culture and tradition of the
people. In Nigeria, nay Africa, its huge responsibilities are usually heaped upon the shoulders of the
husband, being of course the one first to conceive of setting up a home. That is not to say that the women
are not expected to play their own marital roles as well. But when the union fails or is doomed to fail, the
man is often blamed. Perhaps this is part of what Atta has set to demonstrate in the story. Sunny Taiwo,
Enitan’s father’s only fault is his having another baby by another wife. An act Arin, Enitan’s mother,
considers treacherous. After Enitan is born, Sunny Taiwo is dissatisfied with the thought of having a
female as first child. So this results in their long love-lost affair that has turned Arin to a frantic churchgoer. Hear what she thinks of her husband:
He was no good. After you were born, I told him I didn’t want another child. God had blessed us with a
healthy child. Why risk having another? But his family wouldn’t hear of it. He had to have another wife,
and his mother, that woman who suffered so much herself, threatened me too. Your father never said a
word to support me. (172)
How can he ever say a word to support her, when a marriage devoid of a male child is regarded as failed!
This same thrust has recurred in most African novels: from Aidoo, Okpewho, to Achebe, to Emecheta. All
of these novelists have shown the importance as well as the indispensability of the male child in their
novels. In actual fact, marriage in the African setting is majorly hinged on childbirth, especially having a
male child who is believed to be more capable as a successor and upholder of the family name and
dignity.
The Theme of Religion
Religion is the fulcrum of human existence. Is this also true of those to whom it is a tool for exploitative
purpose? Should we be wary of others whose religious belief is very disheartening to us? What exactly is
responsible for the rancour between Mama Enitan and Sunny Taiwo so much so that the former could not
stand the latter for a second? Is it only her inability to give him a male child? An in-depth read of the story
reveals a latent hatred inspired by religious intolerance. Prior to renouncing Anglicanism, Arin Taiwo is
loved and cherished by Sunday Taiwo as a wife. But consequent upon losing their only son to sickle cell
anaemia, Mama Enitan attends a church whose members wear white gowns and walk around with bare
feet. Sunny taiwo’s spite for her wife’s faith is exposed thus as observed by Enitan, his only daughter:
Nothing, nothing, would stop my mother, he said, until she’d destroyed everything in our house, because
of that church of hers. (12)
Conversely, it is this same religion that is resplendent in the friendship between Sheri and Enitan – both
admire and respect each other despite their religious differences. From childhood to adulthood, their
relationship is smooth and productive. In the same way, Sheri’s Muslim polygamous home is peaceful and
habitable despite their number as against Enitan’s monogamous’ background. To be sure, we could glean
from the story an attempt by Atta to relay the different attitude to and understanding of religion. While to
some religion should be as they conceive it, to others it is what it is, regardless of his attributes. In other
words, religion should be judged based on the attitude of its adherents.
The Theme of culture and tradition
In Everything Good Will Come, impact of culture and tradition is stressed. Atta tries to buttress how an
individual who aims to defy the norms of the society is often muffled and treated with aspersion. Enitan’s
individuality is regarded as betrayal and disloyal by her educated father to whom women are not expected
to partake in activism. Once Enitan engages him in a debate concerning women marginalisation in the
society, he looks up at her and says that she is not even qualified to discuss women because besides
discussing it there is nothing else she can do to remedy it, not considering her own privileged, spoiled, and
sheltered life. in the same vein, when she grants Grace Ameh of the consistently threatened Oracle
newspaper an interview, everyone including her husband, Niyi Franco, frowns at it and even goes to the
extent of keeping malice with her. Not only that, Atta seems to further question the African tradition
whereby a bride is expected to weep at the point of her departure for her husband’s home during wedlock.
Upon leaving for her new husband’s house, Enitan boasts thus:
I did not shed a tear over leaving home. I, who cried easily. After the final rites, when a child knelt before
her parents and they blessed her, she was supposed to cry. (178)
The question, therefore, is: is the female kind not fit enough to rebel against convention, especially one
about which little is reserved for their own dignity and ego? Atta seems to ask
Theme of political instability
Also noteworthy in Atta’s Everything Good Will Come is political instability, as it affects everyday life of
ordinary people. Throughout the novel, Atta expresses disdain at the epileptic nature with which the helms
of affairs operate, a result of which is pandemonium, chaos, dilapidated infrastructure, political
gangsterism and electoral fraud. And the worst it, of course are the masses, the ordinary and even middle income earners who suffer untold hardship ranging from abiku-like electricity supply, scarcity of
drinkable water, rib-cracking inflation rate, among others. Set in the era of Nigeria’s constant change of
power from one military government to another, the novel documents the ruthless and deserved torture of
some pro-democracy citizens who stood their ground against misrule. On her father’s conversation with
Mr Sunny Taiwo about the new military take-over of government, Enitan remarks that:
He was wary of the new military government, and their promise to wage war against indiscipline. I
thought that it wasn’t such a bad idea, in a country where you still couldn’t expect electricity for a full
week. Then the reports started coming in: floggings for jumping bus queues; squats for government
workers who came late to work, a compulsory sanitation day to stay home and dust. (82)
What is more, Sefi Atta has demonstrated through her fine, witty and beautifully written novel, Everything
Good Will Come, several issues as they confront the African, in every of his/her endeavours. Even though
she uses Nigeria, her home country, as the heart of the story, the issues discussed therein are microcosmic
of human concerns in every clime and time.
(B). Feminist Perspective In Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come
The feminist evaluation in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good will come brings to fore the predicament of women
in a male breadwinner and female housewife family structure. This is apparent in the lives of characters such
as Enitan’s mum, Sheri and Sheri’s step mums who as stay-at-home wives, were constantly at the beck and
call of their breadwinner husbands who shuttle them back and forth given that the women were
economically dependent on them. The notion illuminates “Marxist feminist perspectives that women’s sex
class as well as economic class plays a role in women’s oppression (Tong 108)” as demonstrated in Enitan
and Sheri’s father’s household. For instance, Enitan’s father coerces Enitan’s mum- a full time housewife
into having a son in the bid to have a heir apparent who later turned out to be in poor health. She
experiences physical and psychological trauma till the child dies. Everything Good will come illustrates how
the pressure and demands to be a perfect mother, wife, child nurturer and caregiver without a husband’s
assistance drives Enitan’s mum to misery as she collapses into church extremism- as a means of escape from
her many disillusions. Not long, she degenerates into alienation, resentment and death. In this context, Sefi
Atta’s Everything Good will come validates the perception that “motherhood is an alienating experience for
women especially when … exclusively men decide the policies and laws that regulate women’s reproductive
choices… to bear as many children as physically possible (Tong 110)” without the man’s support.
In a similar vein, Sheri, Enitan’s friend also recounts the sundry events and occurrences that stared
her step mothers and children in the face when her father died. She expresses grief that “…when my father
died who remembered me? We didn’t even know where our next meal would be coming from and no one
cared. Not even my uncle who took all his money… (Atta 104)”. The novel portrays how men’s control of
property alters the family form into a patriarchal one where the woman becomes a property of the husband,
father or uncle. Patriarchal ideology which merely views women as wives and mothers rather than as
workers, disinherit women, makes them property less and perpetrates male dominance. This upholds
Marxist Feminist tenet which says, “women are systematically harmed in many ways by the gender relations
within which they live and thus, those relations can be described as oppressive (www.ssc.wisc.edu)”.
Consequently, since women are solely into housework and childrearing they tend to depend on their
husband’s wealth. Therefore, to surmount their challenges and make a livelihood, the novel explains that
Bakare’s wives decide to start a business in their home to fend for themselves. As the narrator puts it:
The Bakare’s started their catering business…it wasn’t difficult a transition for them. Their
house in Victoria Island was spacious and part of their backyard was conveniently cemented.
Their hands were many. Sher’s step mothers took charge of the cooking while she handled the
money… (Atta 135).
However, Sheri laments he situation:
I ‘m not even sure we can continue the business. My uncle comes to the house complaining that
we are misusing his property. He wants to take the house from us, I ‘m sure. He can’t do that!
Why not? She said. He took everything else under native law as my father’s rightful heir. Why
should the house be different… (Atta 138).
The except substantiates the extent to which marginalization activities of Sheri’s uncle who would not allow
them to have a freehand or economic dependence largely explains the subordinate and submissive roles
perpetuated by male chauvinism against women independence. This validates feminist analysis of patriarchy
intermixed with Marxist’s analysis of capitalism.
Other instances of unpaid housework and male violence in the home is brought to light between
Sheri and her husbands. In Sheri’s first marriage a vivid scene of how she overworked and enslaved herself
to the point of becoming “…a kitchen martyr and… forgotten how to flaunt her mind (Atta 106-107)”.
Furthermore, the narrator explains Sheri’s dilemma in the second marriage:
…I saw how she limited her involvement in the family business to please her brigadier. She
tidied…she dusted with cleaning rags, sometimes with her fingers…. The rest of her time she
spent preparing for Brigadier Hassan: her hair, her nails dabbing perfumes and cooking meals…
(Atta 157).
Through the novel, Everything Good will come, Sefi demonstrates how Sheri’s husbands at diverse
instances made her stay-at-home condition worse even after ‘personally servicing’ them with not just house
care but with emotional comfort. The novel therefore, sustains the Marxist feminist view that “various
social, economic and cultural processes in contemporary societies which undermine or reproduce existing
forms of gender oppression … create the context for transformative struggles through the agency of women
(www.ssc.wisc.edu)”. Sefi Atta’s novel of study turns attention to the habitual work women do in the
domestic sphere-which men naturally do not do and often unappreciative. By so doing, the author suggests
that women must break out from these subservient positions to be liberated.
Along these lines, Enitan soon recognizes that her mother was never remunerated or compensated
for all her housework commitment to support her father. So, she supports her mother’s decision to own and
take possession of her husband’s properties as she states “…if my mother took a house, two houses … she
deserved them. The power had always been in my father’s hands… (Atta 153)”. Subsequently, Enitan
compels her father to transfer the documents of one of his houses as compensation. This was addressed with
so much inattention by Enitan’s father, but for her persistent persuasion. To overcome the domineering
patriarchal system, the writer, Sefi Atta just like Marxist feminists has confidence that women can gain
consciousness of themselves as a class of workers by insisting that women’s domestic/house work be
recognized as real work which must be remunerated or compensated for women to achieve full liberation
and parity with men in their home environment. Hence, the novel captures Sheri seeking to employ the
services of Enitan’s father - a renowned lawyer to challenge in a court of law her uncle’s dispossessing of
her step mum of the family inheritance and business venture.
Taken together therefore, by raising fundamental concerns, regarding the conditions of women in
their homes- undervaluing women’s domestic work, compelling, intimidating women into stay-at-home
wives and depriving women of monetary compensation for domestic works in the family are fundamental
structures by male bias, prejudice and discrimination to stifle women’s economic independence. Sefi Atta’s
Everything good will come illuminates the extent to which domination and oppression marks women’s lives
from cradle to the grave. Hence, the demand for house cleaning, meal preparation and childcare to be
adequately paid for. This would go a long way to expediate the eradication of hunger, dependency, poverty,
exploitation and male supremacy over the woman. Thus, the novel, Everything good will come calls for the
incorporation of women on feminist terms in all corporate structures. It demands for equal access to family
resources, and the dire need to liberate women from the overwhelming dependence on men in contrast to the
downgrading and sidelining of women under dominant power structures in postcolonial societies.
(C). Masculinity in Sefi Atta's Everything Good will Come
Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come is a narrative that chronicles events of masculinity in
and around the life of Enitan, right from childhood to adulthood. Sectionalised into four parts, the
novel brings into focus many of the incidents that have bedevilled Nigerian state, particularly the
Nigerian/Biafran Civil War; crass materialism of Nigerian Civilian governments; the oil boom in the
Niger Delta and the consequent pollution by foreign oil companies; lack of social infrastructure;
military incursion in governance, and others. Again, the novel recounts other significant happenings
that dot Enitan’s life as she matures in years, especially her parents’ separation, her father’s detention,
and her own divorce. However, central to our engagement in this paper is Atta’s lucid description of
the harrowing experiences that women are subjected to in the hands of the macho male, and the
responses generated. This is particularly significant, considering what could be termed ‘overtly
damaging portraitures of the male characters’ in her narrative.
The first and, perhaps, most prominent male character in the novel is Sunny, a brutal man who
constantly cheats on Arinola, yet behaves piously. When his debauchery with another woman results
in the birth of Debayo, he keeps the details away from his family for years; when the son Arinola has
for him eventually dies, he accuses Arinola of neglects, particularly for taking the boy to a church
instead of a hospital. Arinola’s justification never pacifies him:
Your father wouldn’t forgive me, kept talking about hospital. Why didn’t you take him to
hospital.... Hospital can’t take sickle cell out of a child, hospital cannot make a dying child
live. I am not an ignorant woman. There isn’t a mother in the world who wouldn’t believe
that faith can heal her child after medicine has failed... (173).
Sunny’s alienation and unforgiving attitude result in Arinola’s hypertension, yet he keeps spending
more time in the arms of other women. When the court eventually dissolves their marriage, Sunny
refuses to obey the court’s injunction to transfer one of his houses to Arinola, still insisting, after ten
years, ‘Your mother.... can wait.... After what she’s done, bad mouthing me all over the place, trying to
get me disbarred...’ (111). The divorce paper found by Enitan catalogues Sunny’s bestiality:
A neglectful and uncaring attitude; withheld housekeeping allowance; on several
occasions did not return home and gave no reasonable answer as to his whereabouts;
influenced her (Arinola’s) child to disregard her (Arinola); disrespected her church
family; made wicked and false allegations about her sanity; colluded with his family
members to alienate her; caused her much embarrassment and unhappiness (277).
Analysing Sunny, Enitan lets out: ‘Guilt never did show in my father’s face.... It was how he’d
driven my mother to distraction’ (150). Ironically, Sunny still engages in the fight against the
oppressions caused by the military rule, complaining openly about its lawlessness. He, in fact, chooses
to be imprisoned for his ideals. Sunny, undoubtedly, reminds one of Eugene in Adichie’s Purple
Hibiscus, who also behaves cruelly to his family, but fights injustices caused by the Military
government. No other character succinctly captures these contradictions in Sunny’s personality like
Arinola, ‘Too bad for your father. He can’t keep a family together, now he wants to save his country?’
(220). Unfortunately, just like Nnu Ego in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood who sacrifices her
comforts for her family’s well-being but dies ignominiously, Arinola is later found dead in her solitary
home.
Niyi represents another perspective of the macho male who believes in absolute submission of
women to men, as well as separation of duties. He believes the kitchen remains the female sphere,
hence refuses to lend helping hand to Enitan, claiming ‘he was totally inept inside kitchens. His
favourite trick was to feign panic attacks by the door, clutching his throat and keeling over’ (183- 84).
As a domineering husband, Niyi bosses Enitan around, even as he sees any disapproval of his views or
actions as a challenge to his patriarchal authority. He, at a point, calls Enitan aside and announces,
‘Better watch what you’re saying. Next thing, they’ll be calling me woman wrapper’ (182). Niyi’s
statement reinforces “those ideas of masculinity which insist that to be a ‘real man’ includes the
dominating and controlling of wives” (Cousins 109- 110). When Enitan refuses to take to his advice
that she should bother less about her father’s incarceration, he engages her in a four-month cold war
and even refuses to congratulate her on her thirty-fifth birthday. Niyi bothers less about the
psychological effect of his actions on his pregnant wife because ‘what he wanted was a surrender... he
was a man who believed in absolutes...he would break my (Enitan’s) heart for my own good’ (250).
Before their divorce, Enitan captures their condition of living and her
agonies during this period, ‘Our home was ridiculous.... Silence had become noisy......I
wanted to tell him that a heavy plug had settled at the base of my womb... that I was finding it difficult
to sleep on my belly at night’ (239- 240).
Brigadier is a Casanova as he delights in ‘collect(ing)...women as young as his daughters’
(103), not minding the psychological effects of his action on his retinue of wives. As one of
Brigadier’s multiple, sexual partners, Sheri is expected to obey some rules: tying up her head anytime
she goes out, and spending most of her time at home, cooking and preparing for his (Brigadier’s) visit.
When Sheri fails to abide by his rules, Brigadier raises his eyebrows, and even engages her in a
physical fight, ‘Telling me (Sheri) I’m a whore for going out....Raise a hand to hit Sheri Bakare...’
(169).
Portrait of Sheri’s uncle shows a vicious man void of human sympathy. Under native law,
Sheri’s uncle inherits every property and money left by his deceased brother. He also complains
bitterly when he discovers his brother’s family has converted part of the only house left for them to a
cafeteria, and so he takes the family to court, demanding their immediate ejection.
Other male characters that maltreat women in the novel include: Enitan’s London boyfriend
who takes advantage of her naivety, deflowering her, but later claims she is frigid like other Nigerian
women in bed; Mother of Prisons’ husband who cannot keep a job due to his indolent nature, yet eats
gluttonously, shamelessly relying on his wife’s income for the family’s upkeep, while lying to
everyone that he takes very good care of his family; Mike Obi who cheats on Enitan not too long after
he has succeeded in making love to her; Demola and his friends who rape Sheri, culminating in her
barrenness as she attempts to kill herself with a hanger after discovering she is pregnant; Mrs
Williams’ husband who divorces her for always attending parties and other meetings; Peter Mukoro
who cheats on his wife; a house
boy who murders his female employer, leaves her body indoors and uses her car for taxi services; a
man who throws acid into his lover’s face; and a man who molests a female child hawker.
Indeed, there are many indices to suggest that Atta’s novel is a catalogue of atrocities often
perpetrated by men against the female folks, showing, among other things, how African culture has
helped in certain areas to maintain patriarchal hegemony, while also revealing radical ways to ending
female subjugation. In what appears to be some of her conclusions on the various categories of men,
Atta, through Enitan, identifies the following strands: ‘beaters, cheaters, lazy buggers and the so-called
decent ones who no one would encourage a woman to run like hell from’ (249). The image of the male
gender offered by Atta certainly engenders one fundamental question, which, in turns, births other
similar questions: For which audience has Atta written her novel- African (Nigerian), Westernised
African or Anglo-American? This is germane as one observes that Atta has embraced the Western
radical feminists’ prescription in ending women’s subjugation, contrary to the beliefs of some notable
African scholars and theorists who have theorised African women’s issues in their rejoinders to
feminism. Will it, therefore, be out of place to assert that Atta has, either deliberately or inadvertently,
injuriously dealt with certain essential issues? First to be identified here is the issue of bride price and
other marriage processes in Africa, which Atta discreetly demonstrates her denunciation for. This is
evident in Enitan’s and Niyi’s disposition to the whole processes during their traditional marriage.
Perhaps, Atta’s position is in recognition of the repressive nature of certain aspects of the African
culture, and, in this case, the abuse and bastardisation of the bride price practice, yet Sotunsa has
shown that the practice is not to be regarded as a negative culture as it is actually meant as a token of
the value of female children, and of husbands’ love for their wives (133).
Again, considering the actions and inactions of many of the principal characters in the novel,
which ultimately result in proliferation of divorce as a viable way of ending stifling unions, one is
tempted to ask: Is Atta recommending divorce/separation as the only pragmatic way for women to
escape dysfunctional marriages (or relationships), and ensure self- realisation and assertion, bearing in
mind that ‘marriage (is) a form of imprisonment’ (Grace Ogot, qtd in Cousins 104)? Are motherhood
and the traditional roles of women as nurturers and care-givers now an aberration, considering
Arinola’s negative perception of having more than one child, and Enitan’s vehement disdain for the
kitchen and her frequent reference to it in negative terms, even to the extent of asking her mother-inlaw, ‘Don’t you feel lonely in here, ma? Isn’t the kitchen the loneliest room?’ (181) Is the novel
making a clarion call to other African female writers to continue or start demonising men in their
writings so as to draw sympathy for the female folks and also justify the radical steps being taken by
them to end their oppression, or better still, is the novel recommending portraitures of women in
female writings who mete out to men whatever injustice(s) men is believed to have done to women for
centuries past by rendering men ineffectual like Grace Ameh’s husband?
One is tempted to ask further: Is Atta trying to point out that assertion and self- realisation are
not possible until a woman breaks away from her man, considering that Sheri and Enitan could not
attain their goals as long as they are still with their lovers? Is Atta’s novel a response to Nwapa’s
question, ‘Are there no women in Africa today who can say: To hell with men and marriage. I don’t
want to have children. I want to be free to do just as I please’? (530) Are men wholly responsible for
women’s repression considering how women, across time and cultures, serve as custodians and
executors of the various barbarous acts against other women, evident in the victimisation of Arinola by
her husband’s mother? Is the fact that housekeepers normally run away from Arinola, after her
divorce, not a confirmation
that she is lacking in certain areas? Has the novel been conceived with the African and, perhaps,
Anglo-American females in mind, to the exclusion of (African) males?
Certainly, all well-meaning individuals will be interested in the questions raised,
considering the fact that apart from the marriages of Uncle Fatai, Sheri’s father, Niyi’s parents and
Grace Ameh, which lack intense exploration (reasons best known to Atta), virtually all other
relationships in the novel suffer shipwrecks. But then, even the ones ‘standing’ raise some dust:
Uncle Fatai’s marriage is intact because the wife is a state judge who is free to do whatever she
likes; Sheri’s father has two wives that cannot vociferate their concerns explicitly as they would
then have to worry about their husband’s mother who goes tough on anyone that destabilises peace
in her son’s house; Niyi’s parents are still together because his mother has ‘swallowed her voice
from the day she married’ (180); Grace Ameh’s marriage endures because she is in full control of
her home.
Atta, undoubtedly, betrays what Kehinde and Mbipom describe as ‘“anti-sexist sexism” in
her narrative (14). Thus, the novel fits into Sotunsa’s definition of a feminist literature, which ‘is a
work written in a prejudiced way to favour the status of women... it is a
... castigation of the male... in protest against the previously damaging female portrayal in many
male writings’(7). Sotunsa’s submission re-echoes the reason why majority of African female
writers and critics have expressed some concerns about the corpus of works by some other African
female writers who have embraced radical feminist thoughts in their writings, contrary to their
expectation, due to their dysfunctional effects (Fatunde 73). Acholonu draws attention to this fact
when she states:
... adopting (radical) Western feminist paradigms (by African female authors in
their writings) was (and still is) quietly encouraging African Women to reject their
traditional roles in the family, which included mothering, nurturing, house-keeping,
even child bearing... African feminists have frequently launched a militant, angry
feminist attack on women’s traditional roles...
(as) provided by Simon de Beauvoir’s classic work, The Second Sex.... Social
relationships, the loving devotions of a mother to a child, a wife to a husband, a
sister to a brother, etc “are not positive values in Beauvoir’s philosophy (82, 85).
Although, no attempt is being made to encourage further dehumanisation of the female
gender (and, in fact, some women may still opt for divorce or other available option(s) in ending
their subjugation), we are of the opinion that, first, marriage (and by extension motherhood) should
not only be presented as a bed of thorns, by portraying ridiculous female characters, like Niyi’s
mother, and effete male characters like Ameh’s husband, thereby discouraging any female (and, by
extension, male) that wants to participate in the institution. Emecheta’s submission is apposite
here:
It is our work to bring the next generation into the world, nurture them.... There
should be more choices for women...who wish to be like Geraldine Ferrara... Golda
Meirs... Margaret Thatchers. But those who wish to control and influence the future
by giving birth and nurturing the young should not be looked down upon (556).
As a corollary to this, suggesting divorce as the only alternative to ending women’s
oppression may not be an appropriate recommendation, neither is women completely taking charge
and getting things done, in place of their male counterparts (so as to prove a point), after all, as
Nwapa states:
Our task should be to exploit elements of our indigenous traditions- such as
democracy, tolerance, sharing, and mutual support- in order to achieve our goal.
The fact that one man betrays and brutalizes you does not mean that another will do
the same. There should be interdependence and some measure of understanding
which blossoms to mutual respect and equality... The African woman writer has a
great responsibility now and in the future... (532).
Again, even though we are not in support of men not helping their wives in carrying out
kitchen activities, Atta’s presentation of women’s engagement in the kitchen as a suffocating and
debasing activity, requires a re-examination, if Emecheta’s stance, cited below, is anything to go
by:
In our kitchens we raise all Reagans... Nkrumahs... Jesuses.... we cook for them... to
be grown men and women... in our kitchens they learn to love and to hate. What
greater job is there? A mother with a family is an economist, a nurse, a painter, a
diplomat and more (556).
Therefore, while not denying the intrinsic quality of Atta’s novel, considering how it lends a voice to
women, thereby creating a platform for self- (re-)examination, it is our submission that it is high time
contemporary African female writers reconsidered their over concentration on violent confrontation,
aggression, blatant chauvinism, etc, in their writings. Again, since every writer observes and interprets
the norms, the values and the customs of society, and has the power to sway public opinion one way or
the other depending on her/his interpretation of social values (Ngcobo 540), there is a need to find a
dynamically organic approach to writings that will encourage mutual understanding, forgiveness,
cooperation and acceptance among the sexes. This task, we believe, is possible even while still ensuring
that women’s desires for recognition, self-realisation, freedom and respect are not jeopardised. One sure
way to ensure this is by adopting any of the alternative African theories to the Western feminist
paradigms. These include (African) Womanism, Stiwanism, and Motherism, which have discarded the
violent and militant approach (es) of the Western feminism in their ideological perspective. Important
Nigerian female novelists that have demonstrated this set vision include Ifeoma Okoye (evident in her
novel, Behind the Clouds) and Zaynab Alkali (in The Still Born). We will, thus, like to see more African
(Nigerian) women writings that celebrate harmony, love, respect, forgiveness and understanding among
the sexes, while also prescribing practical ways of ending any subjugation by either sex, without
necessarily embracing divorce or any other radical measure that largely runs contrary to African ethos
(E). Womanism Perspective Sefi Atta In Everything Good Will Come
In this section, the researcher is able to establish a clear survey of what the female writers
in modern African literature have been able to accomplish in their struggles to defend the
African women. Their penetration into African literary world availed them a better
position to protest the grotesque distortion of truth about women maltreatment and
marginalization among African nations. However, as literature advocates peace and
freedom in African context, it serves as a profound weapon with which the ills of the
society are exposed. This view gave the female writers the capacity to re-entrench or
establish those recognized predictions, selected core indigenous statements, texts or
works to show that some conditions in African traditions and cultures have continues to
restrict the freedom of women despite the ever increasing growth of civilization. This is
the argument raised by Sefi Atta in Everything Good Will Come. The invents portrayed
in the novels featured female characters that live in Africa starting from the era of
African post-independence and the dispensation of military rule which caused so many
problem that led to Nigerian civil war.
(F). Queer Theory
First and second wave feminism dealt mainly with women emancipation as it relates to
class, sex, and race. Third-wave feminism, as seen in queer theory, challenges essentialism.
Essentialism is the idea that a person’s true identity consists of fixed rigid and unbending
properties that make one truly human (male or female). To queer theorists, human identity is
culturally constructed. Gender – what it means to be a man or a woman–is fluid, open to constant
change. In other words, a person can migrate from homo to hetero and vice versa, again and
again. This is the position of social constructivists. In the book Men’s Lives, Kimmel and
Messner (1995:49) are of the view that ‘Feminist’ is a term that increasing numbers of gay men
apply to themselves as they come to recognize the common oppression of homosexuals and
women. Thus, “Both lesbian studies and gay studies began as ‘liberation movements’ – in
parallel with the movements for the African American and Feminist liberation – during the antiVietnam war, anti-establishment, and countercultural ferment of the 1960s and 1970s (Abrams
and Harpham, 2009: 296, 297).
The essence of the struggle has been to secure for homosexuals political, legal and
economic rights equal to those of the heterosexual majority. While the minority group is
derogated, subordinated and marginalized, the majority group assigns itself privilege, power and
centrality.
There also exist Queer religions,
dedicated to serving the spiritual needs of
homosexuals as well as Queer theology which seeks to provide a counterpoint to religious
phobia.
A report featured in Impact, a magazine published in Singapore, in its June/July 2010
Edition says:
Gary Mcfarlane, 48, a Christian relationship counselor
From Brisol, will argue an employment tribunal was wrong
to back his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to
homosexual couples… Senior judges are biased against
Christianity and should be banned from ruling in religious
rights cases, according to the former Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord Carey. (p. 20)
From this report, homosexuals are now endowed with a lot of rights and privileges –
political, legal, economic, social, medical, among others. Socially, they can assert their rights of
choice to be what they want to be. They have discovered their identity which they now carry
with dignity and pride – at least in their own way.
Transvectism is another issue in Queer studies. Transvectism literally means “crossdressing”. A transvestite often uses clothing as a sexual stimulant or fetish. Transvestic
behaviour in men ranges from occasional solitary wearing of female clothes to extensive
involvement in a transvestic subculture (Sarason & Sarason, 2002: 262). Sarason et al (2002)
submit further:
Some males wear a single item of women’s apparel (e.g
underwear or hosiery) under their masculine attire, while
others dress entirely as females and wear makeup…Women are not usually considered to be transvestites,
probably because our society allows them to dress in most
masculine styles.
(p.263)
But the African society has a clear-cut dichotomy between male and female wears.
Among the Yoruba speaking people of Nigeria, for instance, agbada (flowing gown),
bubaatisokoto (top and trouser) will differentiate a male from a female with bubaatiiro (top and
wrappa), the latter tied round the waist. Nnachi (2011:110) insists that from time immemorial,
males have been expected to dress differently from the females. On “African Societies in
Dressing and Gender”, Nnachi remarks:
In Africa, especially in Nigeria, males have been expected to dress
differently from the females…Many African cultures, for
instances, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba cultures of Nigeria would require
the man to dress differently from the woman. In many Nigerian
ethnic cultures, it would appear funny for the man to dress exactly
like a woman and vice versa. In some communities, it could be
considered as sacrilegious for the man to put on the dresses
assigned to women and parade around with such.
(p.110)
In most African cultures, the dresses for males include trousers, knickers, wrappers (for
some traditional occasions), shirts, chieftaincy wears, robes, masculine gowns, masculine shoes,
masculine caps and other materials approved and recognised by the concerned communities
(Nnachi, 2008:55) Males that dress outside the normative wears are sometimes considered as
deviants or yokels. Sexual topics generally considered unusual (odd or queer) include gay,
lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender, pedophilia, transexuality, transvestism, sodomy, bestiality,
among others. In many nations of the world today, especially third world and Islamic nations,
queer is stigmatized above AIDS; it is probably seen as being more contagious than leprosy. Yet,
Sharonrose (1998) observes:
Bisexuality has been recognized and practiced since ancient
times, but only recently has it emerged as a political
identity in U.S. Sexual politics… Attempts(must be made)
to refute the myths surrounding bisexuality. (p. 467)
The threats and rejection suffered by gay and lesbians were most likely ignorantly
imposed by the society and so needed political solution. According to Goring, Hawthon and
Mitchell (2001):
The recuperation of the term queer originally a term of
abuse aimed at homosexuals, but reclaimed by them to
announce their pride in their identity as gays and lesbians –
can be dated from the formation of the American group,
Queer Nation. (p.196)
Queer Nation goes back to 1990. This followed cracks and divisions amongst the ACT
Up movement in New York. Activists started to initiate a new grouping. On Queer Nation, Lucas
(1998) posits:
Queer Nation built activism on sexual identify – not just
gay or bisexual but queer. Queer was used as in-your-facecatch-all design label. Its shocking tone caught some of the
violence shown against lesbian communities in America
and threw it back. It was also a call to queer nationalism - a
community that confronted homophobia and had collective
responsibility for dismantling the power of the closet.(p.14)
The wide spread publicity achieved by Queer Nation gave more and more impetus to gay
and lesbian struggle. No longer would the queer subject be held “behind bars” as it were, or in
the dark or closet, but in the open. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott in their essay “Sexual Skirmishes
and Feminist fractions. Twenty-five years of Debate on Women and Sexuality”, cited in Goring
et al, remark that “queer means to fuck with gender”. Dobie (2009:111) opines that queer theory
has been referred to as third-wave feminism because of its interest in essentialist versus social
constructionist theories explored by the earlier movement. She submits further that the term
queer theory is a reflection of an emerging compromise (alliance) between gay men and lesbians
as opposed to the lone ranger posture of usual male studies and female studies adopted by early
gay and lesbian movements.
The queer theory critic is interested more in narratives that feature the surprising and the
unusual than in ones that cast the characters in steel after the old order. The reason for this is
clear. Matters relating to sex should enjoy fluidity, critics argue. Again, sexuality must be seen as
running along a continuum, probably the long walk to freedom. It is viewed as part of
humankind’s evolutionary or growth process.
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