The representation of women in selected plays of Euripides and selected Ghanaian playwrights

Abstract

This study interrogates the representation of women in selected plays of Euripides and selected Ghanaian playwrights (Efua Sutherland, Ama Ata Aidoo, Mohammed ben Abdallah, and Efo Kodjo Mawugbe) to examine the ‘universalists’ view that the Classics are models for others to learn from. I ask the questions: Comparatively, how do the playwrights represent women’s experiences in the Greek and Ghanaian texts? How do the contexts of the Athenian and Akan communities inform the representation of women in the selected plays? The study examines selected plays of Euripides: Medea, Hecabe, Alcestis and Andromache, and Ghanaian plays: Anowa, Edufa, In the Chest of a Woman and The Witch of Mopti to explore how issues related to gender, patriarchy, feminism, and women’s experiences are represented within the two distinct societies. This comparative study employs a qualitative approach and textual analysis to help in analysing and understanding the selected texts, and how the male-female dichotomy plays out in the development of the plays while considering its cultural and historical contexts. The study draws on liberal feminism and postcolonial literary theory (specifically, African feminism) that aids to focus on gender relations and the roles of women in the plays while creating room to question the role of the Western literary canon and history as dominant forms of knowledge-making and bringing to the forefront, indigenous feminism that has existed in the Akan societies. The study establishes that Western (Athenian/Greek) societies of the classical era has little to teach Akan (Ghanaian/Africa) societies in relation to debates on gender. It reveals that though traditional Akan societies contained some level of inequalities, it mainly consists of great examples of gender parity that can be used to address gender inequalities in contemporary times. The study proposes that Ghana/Africa can rely on its history, folktales and myths than looking to the West for theories and examples. Therefore, this study reflects on the call for African literary writers to modify and retell Africa’s past to address contemporary issues. It is also necessary for African classicists to focus on more balanced research that eliminates the ideology of the superiority of the West and branding African indigenous knowledge as primitive and archaic. This is crucial in making the Classics an important discipline relevant to Africa against the notion that Classics is reserved for the West.