Breaking the Patriarchal Enclave. Wariinga the Female Protagonist Emerges a Heroine in Ngugi's "Devil on the Cross"

Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject African Studies - Literature, grade: 1, Kwame Nkrumah University, language: English, abstract: This paper addresses the challenges that women are exposed to at the hands of men. Guided by feminist theory, this paper projects Wariinga, a woman who breaks the male chauvinistic strongholds and educates herself, acquires an education with professional qualifications. She first studies typewriting and later mechanical engineering and finds work as a mechanic, which is a male dominated area. She stands against men’s sexual advances and takes charge of herself and her world. She evolves into a new, dynamic character, determined to assert her strength squarely on her hunters who hitherto viewed her as a bounty. She shoots her former paramour and counters the men who had earlier tormented her with a gun, a weapon usually associated with masculine power. Equally, women in Zambia and elsewhere in the globe can become the Wariinga in the Devil on the Cross by shaking off the male chauvinistic yoke by learning to assert themselves to bring change in their own lives and destinies and of those dependent on them.