Voice of the New Woman: The Awakening of African Woman in Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde

The subjugation of woman in the male dominated society is represented in the literature of various culture and land. Initially, woman was submissive, docile, weak and dependent on their male counterpart thriving within a limited social and cultural space. The social phenomenon of ‘New Woman’ of the 1920s in Europe and America has led to the reassertion of a woman’s identity and quest for freedom from the patriarchal and cultural bindings, the outcome of which are rejection of traditional marriage and domestic roles of women in the existing societies. The concept of New Woman is widely employed in literature by the women. The paper attempts to explore the voice of the New Woman, the awakening of African woman protagonist in Buchi Emecheta’s Kehinde (1994) from the perspectives of African womanism.