Hegemony and Female Objectification: An Ideological Positioning of the Woman in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah

• Author(s): Okachukwu Onuah Wosu
• Paper ID: 1707309
• Page: 929-937
• Published Date: 27-03-2025
• Published In: Iconic Research And Engineering Journals
• Publisher: IRE Journals
• e-ISSN: 2456-8880
• Volume/Issue: Volume 8 Issue 8 February-2025

Abstract

Inequality arises when policies and values governing the society are manipulated to promote the interest of a particular class or group. This is achieved through the ideological and hegemonic underpinnings of the privileged class or elites in society. This paper therefore examines hegemony and female objectification in Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. It exposes the ideological manifestations of hegemony, discrimination, and ethnic sentiments in our chosen text. Postcolonial theory and feminism are the two theories used in analyzing the primary text. A close study of the novel reveals how groups in the society represented by characters in the novel use language to construct and legitimize acts of oppression against the other. The analyses show that the post-independence African states were noted for imbalance in the socio-cultural and political structures, triggering problems such as marginalization, abuse of power, politics of exclusion, denial of basic human rights, etc. The study concludes by acknowledging that these inequities and exploitative tendencies in the society can be challenged, changed, and shaped into a new order when the dominated members of society assert themselves to gain critical knowledge to emancipate themselves from such ideological underpinnings. Although this may generate conflict, it will, to a certain degree, enable the dominated group in the society to become critically conscious in their environment.

Keywords

Hegemony, Objectification, Inequality, Ideology.

Citations

IRE Journals:
Okachukwu Onuah Wosu "Hegemony and Female Objectification: An Ideological Positioning of the Woman in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals Volume 8 Issue 8 2025 Page 929-937

IEEE:
Okachukwu Onuah Wosu "Hegemony and Female Objectification: An Ideological Positioning of the Woman in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals, 8(8)