Myth and gender discourses in selected novels by Margaret Ogola and Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Abstract

Many literary studies on gender acknowledge the significance of cultural myths in the construction and performance of gender. However, the deployment of myth as a mode of representing gender relations is complicated since on one hand it affirms the existing gender relations while on the other it debunks them. The purpose of this study was to explore gender-power discourses that highlight the interface between the problematic representation of what is regarded as natural and mythological in fiction. It scrutinized how Margaret Ogola and Marjorie Macgoye engage with myth as an ideological category to (de)construct the problematic representation of gender relations. The objectives of this study were: first to examine the nature and function of myths that informs gender construction, secondly the authors’ deconstruction of gender myths and finally to explore the authors’ vision in respect to mythic imagination of gender. The study focused on Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source, I Swear by Apollo, and Place of Destiny; which were analysed alongside Marjorie Macgoye’s Coming to Birth, Victoria, Murder in Majengo and Chira, in so far as they illustrate how the authors fictionalize the problematic deployment of myth in the construction and performance of gender. This study employed a qualitative research method from the constructivist philosophical perspective particularly in analyzing the subjective nature of myth. This entailed a critical analysis of the primary texts using the feminist post-structural approach, to examine how the authors fictionalize gender-power relations within Luo and other emerging cultures. The guiding theoretical standpoints in this analysis include Judith Butler’s ‘gender performativity’, Roland Barthes’ ‘mythologies’ and Michel Foucault’s ‘discourses of power’, all of which work together to display how language and power relations rationalize gender differentiation. Findings indicate that due to the fluidity of myth, there is a thin line between fact and fiction, thus myth has the power to manipulate gender identities and roles. Myth as a language has the power to ‘naturalize’ gender roles and identities, making specific, archetypal traits definitive – thus advantaging one gender over the other. Men and women were found to be potential objects and vehicles of power interchangeably and indeterminately, women often exercising power of their bodies in a subtle way to counter hegemonic power over them. While location and culture influenced conceptualization of gender, myth was still found to permeate socio-cultural, economic and religious aspects of life even in the contemporary society. Education and Christianity were also found to be the major forms of gender agency, contributing to the debunking of gender myths. The study concludes that myth is a manipulative tool of power and control; thus any gender considerations need to be realistic/ change with time so that one gender is not advantaged at the expense of the other. The study recommends that there is need to shift from communal conception of gender (fixed identity/ archetype constructed by myth) to a place where humanity is placed at the core of existence