Rethinking Language and Gender in African Fiction: Towards De-gendering and Re-gendering

The recognition and acceptance of the social construction of gender and the coercive nature of gendered subjectivities has been at the centre of feminist discourse which challenges the subjugation of the woman. G.D. Nyamndi, therefore, in his Facing Meamba attempts to address these concerns and proffer feasible solutions. The representation of women in literature, the role of gender in both literary creation and literary criticism, as studied in gynocriticism, the connection between gender and various aspects of literary form in such genre and metre embody masculine values of heroism, war, and adventure. This androcentric stand has compromised the rights of the woman, resulting in her marginalization, alienation and exclusion from socio-cultural activities. She is maligned with a sense of inadequacy. The patriarchal centre prevails and dominates the woman who has been pushed to the margin of the society. In this regard, Nyamndi demonstrates that, the African woman still has a place within the postcolonial context even though the man is imbued with more powers than the woman. Informed by the postcolonial theory, this study argues that, gendering constitutes a grave danger to a harmonious existence between the two genders. The study revealed that, de-gendering and re-gendering can create harmony between the man and woman because the two concepts are basis for gender equality. To achieve this, language which constitutes a semiotic mould has been exploited to deploy themes like, gender inequality and cultural issues.


Introduction
In the process of gendering, men and women are constituted as a difference, and this difference is used to justify unequal treatment with men as a category valued more highly than women. The women on their part are socially and culturally constructed as voiceless, weak and hidden. For gendering to be undone, de-gendering and re-gendering are important because they are the basis of gender relations which can function along less hierarchical and egalitarian lines.
In the sphere of drama, Bole Butake and Victor Epie Ngome are two prominent playwrights who have dramatized the oppression and marginalization of the Cameroonian woman. In Butake's Lake God and And Palm Wine Will Flow, the oppressive power of the men is very obvious. It takes the strategy of sexual starvation employed by the women to make their husbands see reason; and this move brings the men (who had hitherto been reluctant to protest) into the mainstream of the struggle to confront Fon Joseph who has been oppressing the people. Again, in And Palm Wine Will Flow, the solidarity and collective resolve of the women brings down patriarchy symbolized by the dictatorial Fon of Ewawa.
The social and cultural construct of the woman has always been a source of stimulation, confirmation, insight, self-affirmation, doubt, questioning and reappraisal: it has the potential to alter the perception both sexes see themselves and the world. The radicalism exhibited by the female characters in both dramatic texts mentioned above underscores the reorientation of women's perception of their social and cultural construct, and has also enriched these researchers' potentialities of feminist inquiry. When the incorrigible dictators in the two dramatic texts become too autocratic, the women are left with no option but to fight back.
Finally, in Victor Epie Ngome's What God Has Put Asunder, the orphan girl, Weka who is married to Miche Garba is treated shabbily by her husband. Garba marries Weka not because of love, but because of the rich plantation she inherited from her father. Given that the foundation of their marriage is not based on love, Weka is tormented and tortured by Garba on a daily basis. In the wake of this matrimonial crisis, the court steps in to nullify the marriage.
Within the context of the novel, many examples abound. In Margaret Afuh's Born Before her Time, Abo is betrothed to Worewum, a man old enough to be her grandfather, but since she cannot fight back, her parents tie her up and take her to Worewum's house and he rapes her and in the process, she becomes unconscious. This underscores the vocabulary of silence and absence that adumbrates and imbricates the novel in Anglophone Cameroon. She would eventually escape and marry the man of her choice.
From the foregoing brief review of literature, it is clear that, G.D. Nyamndi's artistic and novelistic vision is an additional voice to women's relation to society as a whole and the traditional role they played for so long; the reason for it, and the ways that this role should now change. In that regard, de-gendering and re-gendering become important ingredients in stabilizing the society.

Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to examine how Nyamndi uses the concepts of de-gendering and re-gendering to surmount the persisting dualisms of man/woman, society/individual and structure/agency in Facing Meamba. The argument of this paper, broadly speaking, is that, gendering has to be undone in order to foster development and growth in the areas of social, political, economic, gender and culture. In trying to push ahead his agenda, the author uses language which is inseparable from the construction of the dominant socio-cultural and gender ideologies in African societies. Secondly, this study preoccupies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research Vol. 1, No. 1, 2020 136 Published by SCHOLINK INC. itself with the efficacy of Nyamndi's novelistic technique and how it enhances his social, gender and cultural vision. The ultimate objective is to explore and establish the authorial vision which is embedded in gender issues.

Conceptualization
Two terms are fundamentally crucial in the understanding of this paper. This is in keeping with Bernard Fonlon's submission in "The Idea of Literature" that the first principle of any scientific discourse is the definition of one's terms or concepts so as to know "clearly and precisely right from the start" what these terms or concepts mean (p. 179). These terms are: language and gender.
Language is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary (Second College Edition) as "The use by human beings of voice sounds and often of written symbols that represent these sounds, in organized combinations and patterns to express and communicate thoughts and feelings" (p. 713). This definition is relevant here because the major concern of this article is to examine the efficacy of language in enhancing themes and the authorial vision in Nyamndi's novel under study. This study demonstrates how language and the other elements of fiction such as setting, characterization, plot and symbolism enhance the socio-cultural, political, gender, economic and philosophical realities in the texts.
Gender is the state of being male or female, but in most cases, it is defined with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological differences. Gender is not determined biologically as a result of sexual characteristics of either women or men; it is rather constructed socially and culturally. This socio-cultural construct has submerged and suppressed the female folk in all sphere of life. Their literary history is characterized by the vocabulary of silence, absence and hiding views with one of revelation, uncovering and discovery. The birth of female consciousness has interrogated the place of patriarchy in the African society. Patriarchy has created an imbalanced situation in African socio-cultural and political system, and this as presented in African creative works, has disrupted the harmony between the two genders. Nyamndi tries in this particular novel to build and create a new woman by giving her a voice.

Statement of the Problem and Research Questions
Women are not inferior in nature, but are inferiorized by culture. Gendering in postcolonial discourse constitutes a grave danger to the collective and harmonious existence between the male folk and female folk. The absence of this harmonious existence is brought about by the process of gendering in which men and women are constituted as difference. This difference is used to justify unequal treatment with men as a category valued more highly than women, and with men imbued with power over women as a category. From this standpoint, the following questions arose: Are women inferior in nature or inferiorized by culture? What is the relationship between language and gender in the postcolonial context? What is the place of degendering and re-gendering? What is the relationship between the cultural code and the message in the text? In view of the statement of the problem and the research questions raised, this paper contends that, G.D.
Nyamndi in Facing Meamba uses language artistically and consciously to de-narrativize the meta-narrative of patriarchy and subvert both the social and cultural construct ascribed to the woman by trying to undo gendering to be able to restructure gender relations along more egalitarian and inclusive lines. Nyamndi in Facing Meamba writes with the consciousness and conviction that envisions a non-hierarchical society. This study further contends that, de-gendering and re-gendering are meant to create stability and harmonious existence between the two genders. De-gendering and re-gendering become vital tools used to work out less hierarchical and dominating ways of being men in the world.

Theoretical Consideration
Sustaining all critical effort is the whole matter of suasion, especially given that no writing is without intent. If writing is not an end in itself, reading cannot be. Reading is a quest both for pleasure and for persuasive material. Each text, upon completion, remains in the balance until it is tipped into oblivion or relevance by the studied verdict of readership-criticism. And that verdictis facilitated by a critical theory particular to each reader and each context. Texts therefore undergo a new birth each time they are (re)read against the backdrop of a critical theory. Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) owes its life in African letters to the critical act, in other words the aesthetic verdict, of a singular reader, Dylan Thomas. This study is informed by the postcolonial theory. Since the complex phenomenon of "postcolonialism" is rooted in the history of imperialism, it is worth discussing this history. The word imperialism is derived from the Latin word, imperium, which has numerous meanings including power, authority, command, domination, realm and empire. Though imperialism is understood as a strategy whereby a state aims to extend its control forcibly beyond its own borders over other states and people, it should be remembered that such control is usually not just military but economic and cultural. A ruling state will often impose not only its own terms of trade, but also its political ideals, its own cultural values, and often its own language, upon a subject state.
Three major phases have characterized imperialism. Between 1492 and the mid-eighteenth century, Spain and Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands established colonies and empires in the Americas, the East Indies, and India. Then between the mid-nineteenth century and World War 1, there was an immense scramble for imperialistic power between Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and other nations. By the end of nineteenth century, more than one fifth of the land area of the world and a quarter of its population had been brought under the British Empire: India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Burma and the Sudan. The next largest colonial power was France, whose possessions included Algeria, French West Africa, Equatorial Africa and Indochina. Germany, Italy, and Japan also entered the race for colonies. In 1855 Belgium established the Belgian Congo in the heart of Africa, a colonization whose horrors were expressed in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Colonization has adversely affected Africa's culture and the collective consciousness of its people because postcolonial literature and criticism arose both during and after the struggles of many nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, now referred to as "tricontinent." Postcolonial criticism has embraced a number of aims: 1) To re-examine the history of colonialism from the perspective of the colonized; 2) To determine the economic, political, and cultural impact of colonialism on both the colonized peoples and the colonizing powers; 3) To analyze the process of decolonization; 4) To participate in the goals of political liberation which include equal access to material resources, the contestation of forms of domination, and the articulation of political and cultural identities; 5) The need to develop or return to indigenous literary traditions so as to exorcize their cultural heritage of the spectres of imperial domination.
Although some voices have advocated an adaptation of Western ideals towards their own political and cultural ends, the fundamental framework of postcolonial thought has been furnished by the Marxist critique of colonialism and imperialism, which has been adapted to their localized contexts by thinkers from Frantz Fanon to Gayatri Spivak.
Postcolonialism cuts across race, gender oppression, class division, culture, power and language, hence, postcolonial discourse potentially embraces and is intimately linked with a broad range of dialogues within the colonizing powers, addressing various forms of "internal colonization" as treated by minority studies of various kinds such as African-American, native American, Latin American, and women's studies. All of these discourses have challenged the main streams of Western philosophy, literature and ideology.

Analysis and Discussion
Nyamndi's penchant for a stable and harmonious society is motivated by a desire to see the real conditions of existence of African women and how they can relate to their culture and their fellow men.
To get a full appreciation of his cultural ideology, we should understand his stand on the role of western ideology and patriarchy in the contemporary African society. Although the analysis in this paper is done under five thematic clusters, namely, setting and characters as language, the cultural significance of the fishing contest, the traditional versus the new woman: degendering and regendering, language and myth as symbols and myth as symbol, it should be considered holistically.

Setting and Characters as Language
Characterization and setting constitute the semiotic mould which is used to deploy the gender agenda in the novel. Facing Meamba is set in both Meamba and Nwemba. The former symbolizes westernization and latter represents the African way of life. wine for you or catch animals during the hunting season. Your chance is in the wrestling field.
(p. 165) Winjala the Crude does not see how a foreign culture will impact their lives positively, and that is why he encourages Tankeh to take his wrestling exercise seriously and disregard the language of the white man. In other words, the solution to African problem cannot come from the West. He is suspicious of the western system as abstracting and falsifying. To him, therefore, truth is in nuances and particularities of African cultural practices. That is, one's culture should provide the platform on which he/she functions. This divergence of approach to life exhibited by Pa Gakobi'ngui and Winjala in the novel provides the locus for the conflict; and this is eventually passed on to both Banda and Tankeh.
The novel is a communication to the reader which suggests more than it says, offering an aesthetic for the way of life in a global and postcolonial context. Banda who is an epitome of western values by virtue of his exposure to western education is presented in a series of paradoxes and irreconcilable opposites: "He was both disease and cure, both thief and anti-thief, builder and destroyer, all in one" (p. 145). The awareness of the co-existence of terror and peace within the soul and relationship of reality and art finds aesthetic expression in Nyamndi's novelistic vision. The novelist in exploiting this stylistic device avoids the distanced self-consciousness, philosophical reflectiveness and formality of novels set in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Banda understandably is a child of two worlds, a hybrid, and the series of paradoxes which suggests an oxymoron reinforce his hybridity. The author perceives hybridity as a danger to the African collective existence.
Again, Meamba is perceived by the traditionalists as a symbol of weakness and those who associate with her are as frail as women. Though PaGakobi'ngui and Winjala the Crude work for the white man respectively as washer man and yard man, the former is castigated on grounds that he did women's job; consequently, he is not worthy to be called a man; the latter is accepted within the rank of men because even in Nwemba men clear farms for their wives (pp. 111-112). This social and cultural construct is a threat to co-existence in any society. In psychoanalytical discourse, Meamba is a catalyst that speeds up the castration process in those who have anything to do with her. For example, when the white men in white cassocks from Meamba visited Nwemba, and asked them to close their eyes, their eyes metaphorically remain closed forever. The missionary's mission in Africa was to destroy Africa's rich cultural heritage. "It was in that moment, when they closed their eyes, that their manhood was taken from them and they became women…The men could no longer say no to the white man. Everything he said was right; everything he did was correct" (p. 112).
The woman in the patriarchal set up is not treated decently, as anything that is weak is attributed only to her. PaGakobi'ngui who is ascribed the features of a woman is to some degree responsible for the cultural destruction in Nwemba. It should be underscored here that, the woman in postcolonial studies has always been represented as lost, hidden or victimized.
The presence of these white men in the "ngomba house" also renders members of the ngomba sacred society weak. The "ngomba secret society" in the North West Region of Cameroon is a powerful group The conversation between Banda and his father is an eloquent illustration and a demonstration of his psycho-moral formulation with regard to his world-view. Banda asks his father, "But you no longer think that way?" And his father answers, "No, not ever since we moved here. Since I entered the white man's service I do not only work for him. I also watch the way he does his things." (p. 32). This shows the extent to which Banda's father has been assimilated. It could therefore be concluded that Pete Harrington is a personification of those Europeans who came to Africa with "a hidden agenda," an agenda intended to make Africans move away from their physical, psychological and cultural roots.
Nyamndi frowns at this and makes a passionate appeal to Africans to get connected to their roots because it accounts for their very existence. Two broad principles should influence and inform social reform in Africa in the coming decades. One is the imperative of looking inwards toward ancestry; the other is the imperative of looking outward towards the wider humanity. The inward imperative requires a more systematic investigation into the cultural preconditions of the success of each project, of each piece of legislation, of each system of government. (p. 20) Nyamndi uses the fishing competition as a microcosm of the macroscopic African cultural activity.
This fishing competition is very deep, veiled and revealing.

The Cultural Significance of the Fishing Contest
The fishing contest constitutes one of the major symbols in the novel. This contest demonstrates that there is the desire to be settled, to be home, to be done with both physical and psychological alienation and the pains of life. This is why during this fishing contest, although Banda emerges first, it is Tankeh's catch that is bigger. Consequently, Tankeh is declared winner by chief Ndelu at the end. This  Tankeh, on the other hand comes second, but his catch is bigger than that of Banda, and he is declared winner by Chief Ndelu in spite of protests from characters like Abua.
Finally, this contest is concerned with psychology, especially the anxieties of those who had lived in various cultures and retain difficulties-to explain emotions resulting from their past. A move towards African cultural values, mores and ethos is perceived as the only way forward in this postcolonial dispensation. The author insinuates that, there are centres of cultures and not only a single cultural centre. The author calls for "decentering" of the imperial centre by creating more cultural centres.
To authenticate the effectiveness of symbolism, Tankeh

The Traditional versus the New Woman: De-gendering and Re-gendering
Across the centuries, the woman has been the subject of innumerable reconfigurations and with every reinscription come the necessity of re-reading. Nyamndi thinks that the postcolonial woman in the present dispensation can both be defamed and defended. That is, while the traditional woman is submissive, compromising and docile, the new woman is resilient, assertive, vocal, aggressive, uncompromising and revolutionary.
The novel underscores a fundamental feminist message. Though women are not inferior in nature, they are inferiorized by culture. Kathy E. Ferguson argues that, "Having been excluded, historically, from public life, and still occupying largely peripheral and powerless positions when they do enter that realm, women have developed a different voice, a submerged discourse" (p. 23). This submerged voice is that of the traditional woman.
Nwemba is patriarchal in perception and execution; women live in the shadow of men and are subjected to all forms of oppression and repression. They are perceived and treated by the menfolk as According to the author, though Lemea is a girl, she has the heart of a lion. Only the mane is missing from the back of her neck. But what is missing outside, she has inside, in her temperament, in her blindness to fear. She is intrepid. Though Banda is the boy in the family, in certain ways she is more of that boy than him (p. 71). This underscores Lemea's fighting spirit to liberate her society from patriarchy.
Lemea who represents the new woman has a fuller and richer voice than the traditional women in the text who are subservient to their husbands. Aunt Sabina does not know that times have changed and things too have got to change. It can be argued that, Nyamndi's novel is concerned with the relationship of particulars and individual identity, or fixity to the ever-changing flux or river of life.
The novel uses the family as a symbolic metaphor for the varied, unexpected but influential ties between the past, present and future. Lemea's aunt and uncle are still basking in the euphoria of arranged marriages, but Lemea charts the future of marriage in the Nwemba society; women will have to choose their husbands. Even in Meamba, her mother had tuned and positioned her to be submissive and subservient. Her mother explains: "…as a girl you had no say in the decision taken in your father's house that you went where that decision sent you" (p. 135). Lemea sharply disagrees with both mother and father on such dictatorial style of administration. This is the beginning of Lemea's socio-cultural consciousness. In fact the woman who was represented as lost, hidden or victimized, the woman who was silent or who had to be kept silent until her consciousness was suitably raised, the woman who was angry and deranged has now burst forth in unstoppable volcanic voice. Lemea is a metaphor of this new woman.
Lemea's reaction towards Sabina and Abua's proposal of the arranged marriage is a demonstration of the fact that all life is related and somehow casually determined yet unpredictable and changing. While continuing to affirm the importance of the actual, immediate and the physical in contrast to the spiritual, the author appears increasingly concerned with the chaos of modern life. While Sabina thinks that the marriage between Dinga and Lemea will appease Lemea's late father, Lemea does not agree with her: The narrator comments that, "Sabina's power of conviction had sent many girls of the family to marriages they had not sued for; and it was known that whenever she set to work, the marriage was as good as sealed" (p. 153). Lemea's confessional and confrontational tone during her rehearsal in anticipation of meeting Sabina and uncle Abua is very telling. This is the imaginary confrontation she would have with them: …No I will not marry Dinga …My daughter! Auntie, I do not know the man you are talking about.
I did not know my own man before I entered his house.
That was you.
Just wait. What I am hearing? Lemea put your eyes in my eyes." (p. 154) She also rehearses on what she will tell Abua: It is a pointer toward the birth of a new woman who is assertive, rebellious, aggressive, uncompromising, philosophical and analytical.
Lemea's protest and subsequent withdrawal from her dictatorial aunt and uncle make a lasting impression on the narrative structure of the novel; she laughs last as she gets married to the one she loves. This is Nyamndi's point of view; that women have the right to choose the man they will spend their entire lives with. The author insinuates here that, just as our biological past lives in the physical body, our social and cultural past lives in the many cultural bodies we inherit-our languages, arts, religions and life-cycle rites. That is why Lemea reacts the way she does; and that is why aunt Sabina behaves the way she does. Nyamndi by creating a new woman who contradicts what the old woman stands for wants the concept of gendering to be reviewed and revised. This is because in the process of gendering, men and women constitute a difference, and this difference is used to justify unequal treatment with men as a category valued more highly than the women. The author thinks that de-gendering and re-gendering can overcome the persisting dualism between the man and the woman. Men should therefore engage in projects that involve de-gendering, even as they engage in re-gendering of gender regimes such as the family.

Language and Myth as Symbols
Myths arise from man's attempt to externalize and communicate his inner intuitions. For Nyamndi to do this effectively, myths and symbols are tied together. One of the devices exploited by Nyamndi is the abrogation of the English language. He starts by subverting the Imperial Centre's claim to language.
This symbolically represents the trajectory and trend writers in Africa have taken: the adopt phase, the adapt stage and the adept stage. The first two chapters constitute asubversion to the Centre's claim to language and culture. The narrator argues that since he is an heir of two traditions, nobody should expect perfection from him in terms of language competence or perfect linguistic expression and manipulation. After all, the English language is first and foremost not his language.
The Imperial Centre has given the colonized African the English language, and with it an unstated history of consequences, an unknown history of future intensions. This gift of language meant not only English in particular but speech and concept as a way, a method, and a necessary avenue towards areas of the self which could not be reached in any other way. It is in this other way that Nyamndi makes the reader aware of these possibilities in general.
Facing Meambais a text which in postcolonial discourse emphasizes fullness in terms of one's mastery of his language/culture. This is presented metaphorically as a cassava plant without roots. The The metaphor of the house is a monument of a society's history and culture. The house symbol reinforces the claims of the Centre whose language postcolonial Africa is grappling with. While others have homes/houses, go back to their homes, have stable families and know where they come from, the protagonist, Banda, sees himself as uprooted without anything to which he can return; he is without a "house". He needs to keep defining himself by subverting the language of the Imperial Centre. Thus, language for him, as for many postcolonial writers, has become the enemy, the tyrant that oppresses the colonized. The past is less a source of value and pride than simply a collection of the chaos of the Nyamndi who is concerned with the need for change, renewal and adaptability, his proclaimed differences of attitudes are usually more minor shifts of opinion and adjustment than radically new visions of the world. He begins by seeking wholeness of being, but sees this as impossibility because the blending of the two cultures is necessary. The narrator who is Nyamndi's mouthpiece attests to this in the first few pages of the novel when he metaphorically refers to this phenomenon as "kola nut head" (p. 7).
In the last part of this paper we will use one of the myths explored and exploited by Nyamndi to debunk the view that Nwemba which is an extended metaphor of Africa is the creation of Europeans.
Thus, this creation myth has been effectively used.

Myth as Symbol
Myth is another symbolic artistic technique explored by Nyamndi to reinforce his thematic preoccupation. Myths are attempts to explain what cannot be explained scientifically. One of the myths explored and exploited by the novelist is that which attempts an explanation of the origin of Nwemba.
Here, the novelist sets out to deconstruct that Nwemba is not the creation of the Europeans who came to Africa on their civilizing mission, but that this society had existed before the white man invaded it.
The novel moves from cultural sclerosis, restlessness, and feeling of alienation to self-consciousness and the quest for some meaning to life that is so much part of the modern mind. Nyamndi does this by using a myth to validate and authenticate the origin of Nwemba. The way to live to avoid emptiness and even extremes is the leit motif of this myth. The myth recounts the heroic and epic exploits of Nwembwana, the patriarch of Nwemba. He fought and captured so many neighboring villages. In the ancestral land of Bengeta, after so many months of trekking, an epic fight opposed Nwembwana and his half-brother, Ilembea. But in the end he is exiled from the village because the popular opinion at the time was that he allowed himself to be dragged into a senseless war. The narrator concludes that "real strength…did not lie in the careless show of brute force but rather in the calm ability to withstand provocation" (p. 158). Nyamndi uses a mythology to create a mask through which he can project his own observations. Though Nwembwana is hailed for bringing into existence Nwemba, his barbaric act of violence is condemned and denounced. Banda, the narrator feels the presence of both cultures in this mythological narrative.
Facing Meamba from the presentation of this myth is a metaphor of the growing self and not an adjunct to the self. Contrary to the stereotypical presentation of African characters in most postcolonial discourses by the Imperial Centre, Nyamndi insinuates in this myth that, that was an unfair assessment of Africans because they were morally conscious. Thus, a writer must draw inspiration from old customs, portray the mentality of the people, and present the exact photographic image of the people's passion, prejudices and virtues. That is why Nwembwana is hailed, yet denounced and exiled for his barbarism and brutality. From this myth, we can conclude that the author uses myth to debunk Europeans' view that they are responsible for the creation of the African continent. Secondly, the author demonstrates that Africans were not as callous and brutal as painted in most western texts, and that, Africans also had/ have their own moral values and compassion for others. Myth becomes an artistic technique which the author uses to adumbrate and imbricate his novel.

Recapitulation of Salient Points
In conclusion, it is important to restate the argument of this article. It is the contention of this study that the exclusivity of the dominant tradition of patriarchy has raised questions about the social and cultural construction of women as hidden, submissive and silence. This is because across the centuries, the woman has been the subject of innumerable reconfigurations and with every reinscription comes the necessity of re-reading. In the context of Facing Meamba, Nyamndi has attempted to defend the defamed image of the woman with the most persuasive and compelling possibilities.
It has not been easy to talk about the universal in African literature and culture, but the passion in The novelist uses setting, characters, incidents, events, language, gender and myth as symbolic ornaments to make his ideological and cultural postures known. The novelist intimates that, although writing might be a problem because it reawakens memories that would have been forgotten, it is also a socio-cultural therapy because it raises awareness of missed opportunities, wrong decisions, the wounding of women you love or who love you. By so doing, the study exposes the exclusivity of the dominant ideology of patriarchy and raises questions about the construction of an ideal objectified woman by the flawed misogynistic tradition as seen in the resistance put up by Lemea against patriarchy.

Revelations
In interpreting and evaluating G.D. Nyamndi's Facing Meamba against the backdrop of postcolonial theory, the following revelations were established: a) That if the masculinity project of men assumes a de-gendering and re-gendering perspective, the intimate relations between the two genders will be cordial; and this cordiality can lead to nation building and development. b) From the perspective of language, Nyamndi's manipulation of language makes him a word-magician and announcer, Africa's spokesman, sponsor and interpreter of Africa's cosmological, ontological, epistemological and philosophical systems. This is because we cannot form an articulate vision of our own moral, educational, cultural and political values without some knowledge of where those values come from, the struggles in which they were forged, and the historical and the cultural contexts which generated these struggles.
c) Thirdly, that if gender difference is brought to its barest minimum, the domination of one gender by another will be checked.
d) The ultimate submission of this work is that de-gendering and re-gendering is not meant to move the society towards androgyny, but rather creating a less hierarchical society.