Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah

Japheth Peter Muindu; Erick Kipkoech Mutai

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah

Japheth Peter Muindu, Erick Kipkoech Mutai

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 4, Issue 4)

Received: 16 May 2016 Accepted: 31 May 2016 Published: 18 June 2016

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Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir’s prediction that the destruction of patriarchy will be realized when women dismantle their patriarchal objectification calls for a rethinking and a reconstruction in culture and feminist discourses of the female body which patriarchy packages as the woman’s curse. This paper is an insurrectionary critique of Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah using the concept of the perverse dynamic advanced by Jonathan Dollimore, which is suffused with feminist ethos, to indict gender dichotomies and the limitations of patriarchal structures. The conflating of the politics of sexuality, dissidence and liberation has been overlooked by critics. I posit that sexual dissidence, which is conventionally an aberration, emerges in the texts as emancipating and as a strategy employed by female characters to subvert patriarchy.

Published in	International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 4, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11
Page(s)	44-48
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Female Sexuality, Liberation, Patriarchy, Subversion

References

[1]	Butler, J. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identities. New York, Routledge, 1999.
[2]	Chinweizu. Anatomy of Female Power: A Masculinist Dissection of Matriarchy. Pero Press, Lagos, 1990.
[3]	Adichie, C. Americana: Faiber and Faiber, New York.2013
[4]	Baingana, D. (2008). Tropical Fish, Tales from Entebbe: Cassava Republic, Kampala
[5]	Arnfred, S., (ed). Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa., Sweden: Alamqnst & Winksell.
[6]	Baumeister Roy & Twenge M. ‘Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality’ in Review of General Psychology 2002, Vol. 6, No. 2, 166-203.
[7]	Weeks, J., “Questions of Identity” in Caplan, P. (ed) The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tavistock Publications, 1987.
[8]	Dollimore, J., Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1997.
[9]	Margaret Hillyard Little, ‘Women’s Sexuality: On the Socialist Feminist Road to Discovery’ in Problematique, No. 1, Spring, 1991, 84-107.
[10]	Michele Alexandrea. ‘Dancehalls, Masquerades Body Protest and Law: The Female Body as a Redemptive Tool Against Trinidad and Tobago’s Gender Biased Laws’ in Caribbean Review of Gender Studies: A Formal Journal of Caribbean Perspectives on Gender and Feminism. Issue 1, April 2007, 2-24.

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APA Style

Japheth Peter Muindu, Erick Kipkoech Mutai. (2016). Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 4(4), 44-48. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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Japheth Peter Muindu; Erick Kipkoech Mutai. Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2016, 4(4), 44-48. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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AMA Style

Japheth Peter Muindu, Erick Kipkoech Mutai. Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. Int J Lit Arts. 2016;4(4):44-48. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11,
  author = {Japheth Peter Muindu and Erick Kipkoech Mutai},
  title = {Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {4},
  number = {4},
  pages = {44-48},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20160404.11},
  abstract = {Simone de Beauvoir’s prediction that the destruction of patriarchy will be realized when women dismantle their patriarchal objectification calls for a rethinking and a reconstruction in culture and feminist discourses of the female body which patriarchy packages as the woman’s curse. This paper is an insurrectionary critique of Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah using the concept of the perverse dynamic advanced by Jonathan Dollimore, which is suffused with feminist ethos, to indict gender dichotomies and the limitations of patriarchal structures. The conflating of the politics of sexuality, dissidence and liberation has been overlooked by critics. I posit that sexual dissidence, which is conventionally an aberration, emerges in the texts as emancipating and as a strategy employed by female characters to subvert patriarchy.},
 year = {2016}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah
AU  - Japheth Peter Muindu
AU  - Erick Kipkoech Mutai
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T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
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AB  - Simone de Beauvoir’s prediction that the destruction of patriarchy will be realized when women dismantle their patriarchal objectification calls for a rethinking and a reconstruction in culture and feminist discourses of the female body which patriarchy packages as the woman’s curse. This paper is an insurrectionary critique of Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah using the concept of the perverse dynamic advanced by Jonathan Dollimore, which is suffused with feminist ethos, to indict gender dichotomies and the limitations of patriarchal structures. The conflating of the politics of sexuality, dissidence and liberation has been overlooked by critics. I posit that sexual dissidence, which is conventionally an aberration, emerges in the texts as emancipating and as a strategy employed by female characters to subvert patriarchy.
VL  - 4
IS  - 4
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Author Information

Japheth Peter Muindu

Department of Linguistics, Literature and Communication, University of Kabianga, Kericho, Kenya
Erick Kipkoech Mutai

Kapkarin Secondary School, Bomet, Kenya

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Japheth Peter Muindu, Erick Kipkoech Mutai. (2016). Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 4(4), 44-48. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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ACS Style

Japheth Peter Muindu; Erick Kipkoech Mutai. Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2016, 4(4), 44-48. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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AMA Style

Japheth Peter Muindu, Erick Kipkoech Mutai. Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah. Int J Lit Arts. 2016;4(4):44-48. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11,
  author = {Japheth Peter Muindu and Erick Kipkoech Mutai},
  title = {Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {4},
  number = {4},
  pages = {44-48},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20160404.11},
  abstract = {Simone de Beauvoir’s prediction that the destruction of patriarchy will be realized when women dismantle their patriarchal objectification calls for a rethinking and a reconstruction in culture and feminist discourses of the female body which patriarchy packages as the woman’s curse. This paper is an insurrectionary critique of Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah using the concept of the perverse dynamic advanced by Jonathan Dollimore, which is suffused with feminist ethos, to indict gender dichotomies and the limitations of patriarchal structures. The conflating of the politics of sexuality, dissidence and liberation has been overlooked by critics. I posit that sexual dissidence, which is conventionally an aberration, emerges in the texts as emancipating and as a strategy employed by female characters to subvert patriarchy.},
 year = {2016}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Celebrating Female Sexuality in Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah
AU  - Japheth Peter Muindu
AU  - Erick Kipkoech Mutai
Y1  - 2016/06/18
PY  - 2016
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 44
EP  - 48
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20160404.11
AB  - Simone de Beauvoir’s prediction that the destruction of patriarchy will be realized when women dismantle their patriarchal objectification calls for a rethinking and a reconstruction in culture and feminist discourses of the female body which patriarchy packages as the woman’s curse. This paper is an insurrectionary critique of Baingana’s ‘Tropical Fish’ and Adichie’s Americanah using the concept of the perverse dynamic advanced by Jonathan Dollimore, which is suffused with feminist ethos, to indict gender dichotomies and the limitations of patriarchal structures. The conflating of the politics of sexuality, dissidence and liberation has been overlooked by critics. I posit that sexual dissidence, which is conventionally an aberration, emerges in the texts as emancipating and as a strategy employed by female characters to subvert patriarchy.
VL  - 4
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download