The Monster in Patriarchy: A review in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, The Housemaid and Faceless

Abstract

Women are not supposed to speak in typical traditional and patriarchal societies. While their husbands address them, they must remain silent to the end of the talk and execute what they are told with no complain and restraint. Women are therefore assigned roles which make them citizens of second zone and living at the margin of society. Cultural and traditional norms of their different community allow their desires being ignored and put aside. Women face subordination, oppression and abuses of all kind all over the time and have to cope with them. This is the true reality of women in patriarchal societies depicted in novels. One of these female writings is found in Amma Darko’s novels. Amma Darko’s narrated involvement in the women’s cause throws up further debates on the role of the female writer in the reshaping of society in terms of gender inequalities. The present paper reviews the novelist’s radical perspective in Beyond the Horizon (1995), The Housemaid (1998) and Faceless (2010). Men presented as being monsters in these tree novels are women’s most feared enemies to combat and slain. The paper also critically explores male dominance as a cultural feature that maintains women under yoke and submission.