Anowa

Anowa is a play by Ghanaian playwright Ama Ata Aidoo published in 1970. It is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter who rejects suitors proposed by her parents; Osam and Badua, and marries a stranger who ultimately is revealed as the Devil in disguise. The play is set in the 1870s on the Gold Coast, and tells the story of the heroine Anowa's failed marriage to the slave trader Kofi Ako.

The play has a unique trait where a couple, an old man and an old woman, play the role of the Chorus. They present themselves at crucial points in the play and give their own views on the events in the play.

Anowa's attitude of being a modern independent woman angers Kofi Ako. He requests her to be like other normal women. Anowa lives in a hallucinated world and the sorrow of not bearing a child depresses her. Her rich husband, now frustrated with his wife asks her to leave him. Anowa argues with him and finds out that he had lost his ability to bear children and the fault was in him and not in her. This disclosure of the truth drives Kofi Ako to shoot himself and Anowa drowns herself.

Anowa represents the modern woman who likes to make her own decisions and live life as per her choice. An additional conflict is that although a tribal woman, she has the traits of a city-bred. Her attitude leads to her destruction.

Influences and Development

According to the artists Minna Niemi and Yaba Badoe, Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa represents a visionary component in the history of the silencing of Afrian woman's perspective and voice.(1) However, more specifically, Ama Ata Aidoo represents the importance of challenging heteronormative and hegemonic gendered roles by expressing open and honest communication between both the female and male characters throughout her text.2 Therefore, because Aidoo considered her voice and role as an African female author to be inferior to her male counterparts, it ultimately highlights the issues surrounding gender inequality and misrepresentation in literary terms, as well as social.[1] In this way, as Connie Rapoo would argue, Aidoo's fictionalized work is a symbolic representation of her own real world experiences as being a female African playright and writer.[2] Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa represents a visionary approach to tackling and discussing the binary gendered roles with her portrayal of masculinity and femininity. [3]

References
  • Parekh, P.N.; Jagne, S.F. (1998). Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780313290565. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
  • Gilbert, H. (2001). Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology. Routledge. p. 97. ISBN 9780415164498. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
  1. Niemi, Minna (2018). "Making The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo: An Interview with Yaba Badoe". Ariel. Volume 49: 12 – via Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database.
  2. Niemi, Minna (2018). "Making The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo: An Interview with Yaba Badoe". Ariel. 49: 12 – via Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database.
  3. Ennin, Theresah (2014). "The Making of Akan Men: Confronting Hegemonic Masculinities in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Healers and Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa". Spectrum (Bloomington, Ind. : 2012). 2: 21 – via JSTOR Arts and Sciences X.
  • Niemi, Minna, et al.,[1]
  • Rapoo, Connie, et al.,[2]
  • Eninn, Theresah, et al., [3]
  1. Niemi, Minna (2018). "Making The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo: An Interview with Yaba Badoe". Ariel. 49: 12 – via Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database.
  2. Rapoo, Connie (August 3, 2019). "Scripting Diasporic Identity in Ama Ata Aidoo's The Dilemma of a Ghost". English Academy Review. 36: 8 – via Scholars Portal Journals: Taylor & Francis SSH Collection.
  3. Ennin, Theresah (2014). "The Making of Akan Men: Confronting Hegemonic Masculinities in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Healers and Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa". Spectrum (Bloomington, Ind. : 2012). 2: 21 – via JSTOR Arts and Sciences X.
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