‘Vie De Femme Vie De Sang’ : Une Lecture Feministe De Les Impatientes De Djaili Ahmadou Amal

Abstract

The existential reality of black African women is a recurring decimal in the discourse on human rights in African literature of French expression. This would be due to the fact that the black woman is still unable to negotiate a niche that is worthy, desirable, and appropriate in the social space for herself. Furthermore, it could be claimed that the African woman is yet to attain the full status of the human being since she still figures prominently among the most 'Wretched of the Earth' or what Gayatri Spivak (1988) calls the 'subaltern' of African society. This essay is a reflection on the lives of African women in the francophone African fiction. The study focused on Les Impatientes by Djaïli Ahmadou Amal, a Cameroonian novelist where she raises the issue of the victimization of African women. In particular, she addresses the problems of tradition; women’s silence in the face of physical and psychological violence; early and forced marriages, and polygamy. The study uses the feminist theory of Simone de Beauvoir to conclude that man manages to be bestial towards woman by the mere fact that the African society delimits and reduces women’s worth to that of a 'sub-Man', and thereby setting the stage for man’s distorted perception of the woman as the 'Other'.