Exploiting the exploiter: some violations of society’s expectations in Beyond the Horizon and The Housemaid
This paper does a critical reading of Beyond the Horizon and The Housemaid and observes that the author, Amma Darko, seeks primarily to challenge prevailing and traditional views of motherhood held by African societies; i.e. motherhood and its associated activities such as caring, training and dis...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM
2015
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8495/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8495/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8495/1/7884-22956-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper does a critical reading of Beyond the Horizon and The Housemaid and observes that the author,
Amma Darko, seeks primarily to challenge prevailing and traditional views of motherhood held by African
societies; i.e. motherhood and its associated activities such as caring, training and disciplining. Amma Darko
sharply condemns this view and calls for a critical analysis of the nature of motherhood, especially in
contemporary times. Agreeing with Amma Darko and taking issues raised by her even a little further, with
snippets from the books, the paper brings to the fore the fact that the prevailing and traditional views of
motherhood have inherent conflict with reality. That is to say, these views are carelessly assumed as problemfree.
Within this context, we also critically bring into discussion the running theme of exploiting the exploiter in
the two books within the framework of gender studies and queer theory. We also generally question the fixed
categories of paradigms generated by normative ideology and conclude with the realisation that almost all
mothers (and, for that matter, exhibition of womanhood) in these novels failed because of the wrong choices
they made, which were basically and largely fuelled by challenging economic conditions. |
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