The Fighting Spirit: Buchi Emecheta’s The Bride Price

Abstract

Literature and in a more general sense, language has an influence to act as a mind opener and can bring consciousness to create new concepts of freedom and equality. Understanding African world therefore, can be crucial for all who urge for freedom and want to rid the world of slavery. Buchi Emecheta has truly blazed the trail in the arena of African Literature and her concerns are reflected in the protagonists of her novels, who are projected as fighting cultural, economic, gender exploitation and oppression, by seeking their identities, one way or the other.Aku-nna, the heroine of Buchi Emecheta’s novel The Bride Price, is a powerful example of one kind of search for personal identity, ‘a self for herself’. This paper represents how women are struggling to get rights and equality in the male dominated world.           

Key Words: Culture, Igbo Society, Marriage, Oppression.