Challenging Masculinity in Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen and Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terror.

Abstract

The paper reads two contemporary African and Indian novels of Buchi Emecheta and Shashi Deshpande from the perspective of feminism and masculinity. It studies the portrayal of women protagonists and the representation of masculinities exhibited by the male characters in each novel. The women protagonists overshadow their male partners in terms of academic excellence, social recognition and financial stability. The paper finds out that these characters are in complete opposition to the typical traditional concept of being a man, the head or the breadwinner of their family. These male characters are in juxtaposition of the hegemonic masculinity which are representative of the patriarchal society and occupy the position of the ‘other’ from the writers’ perspectives. The present paper is also an attempt by the two novelists to show and prove that gender should not be an obstacle and the whole patriarchal set up can be dismantled by the empowered female characters, thereby, occupying the centre, rather than playing the second fiddle in the family. Buchi Emecheta and Shashi Deshpande challenge the stereotypical role of man as the authoritative head of the family who is solely responsible for decision making in the family while relegating the woman to the periphery.