Negotiating Patrilineal Structures: A Feminist Reading of Ahmed Yerima’s Akuabata and Odenigbo

The construction of gender in African literature has been the subject of many scholarly debates, with findings that socially determined roles rather than biological factors distinguish males from females. These findings also claim as inaccurate, pre-colonial depictions of women as confined to the domestic space. These two points drive contemporary investigations of femininity in African literature. Contemporary African writers too, are righting these inaccuracies. This present study investigates two selected play texts by Ahmed Yerima: Akuabata (2008) and Odenigbo (2017b). It explores how Yerima depicts women in an age of conscious portraiture of femininity. The plays were chosen because of their similar focus on the Igbo cultural setting and the centralisation of women characters. The similarity in cultural setting enables a comparative reading of roles. The current paper argues that culturally assigned roles condition the actions and capabilities of women. It also found that Yerima employs other culturally acceptable concepts, such as the Ndi-inyom and Umuada institutions to provide alternative means for the female characters to achieve worthy goals in the plays’ texts. The study concludes that the construction of women in the selected texts depicts them as worthy members of society, who navigate cultural restrictions and become saviours of their communities.