CHAUVINISM IN NIGERIAN PROSE FICTION: AN APPRAISAL OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS AND SEFI ATTA’S EVERYTHING GOOD WILL COME

Abstract

Literature is part of our cultural heritage which is freely available to everyone, and which can enrich our lives in all kinds of ways. It is a means of impacting lives and documenting the past for the future to create a new vision. Through a comparative study, we will be able to understand chauvinism and its impact on the Nigerian culture to the extent that it culture still strives to do away with it. This paper looks to expose and rehabilitate a confused culture of chauvinism. A male who patronizes, disparages and denigrates females in the belief that they are inferior is a chauvinist. Chauvinism is an attitude that the members of your own sex are always better than those of the opposite sex, it is the belief that your country, race, etc is better than any other and this confers undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged in time past. It is an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex; also behavior expressive of such an attitude. This study examines by looking at the Nigerian prose fiction particularly Chimamanda’s Purple Hibiscus.