Personal Analysis of Ama Ataa Aidoo's Anowa

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My favourite text is a play titled “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo which was published in year 1969. This book was first given to me by my father on my twelfth birthday. Although I was disappointed initially because I was expecting something “girly” on my birthday, I liked it when I read it because of the moral lessons it portrayed and the language used in the play. However, I got a deeper understanding of the test after I did a post-colonial and a feminist analysis on the text. In my post-colonial analysis, I saw that in a sense Anowa represents the moral fabric of traditional African society which is destroyed by the greed and the evil of slavery arising from the contact with European capitalism. A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman in the 1870s who is struggling against a detrimental perception of womanhood in her society.

The drama surrounds the story of a young woman called Anowa who disobeys her parents to marry a man-Kofi Ako who has a reputation for indolence and migrates with him to a far place. Childless after several years of marriage Anowa realises that Kofi had sacrificed his manhood for wealth. Upon Anowa’s realisation Kofi in disgrace shoots himself whiles Anowa too drowns herself.
In a postcolonial analysis of “Anowa”, we can see some evidence of Colonialism. Colonialism is a situation whereby a dominant imperium or center carries on a relationship of control and influence over colonies (Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory, n.d.). In this drama, Aidoo portrays a crucial historical moment in Ghanaian history through the personal tragedy of Anowa and Kofi Ako. Anowa in a sense represents Africa, her destruction representing its conquest and the resulting breakdown of the morality, spiritu...

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...away which made her reveal the secret behind Kofi’s wealth.
Having done the above analysis on my favourite text, “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo, I realise that my like for the text have heightened because the analysis of Anowa has given me a deeper understanding of Africa’s colonialism and our cultural heritage through the personal lives of Anowa and Kofi.

References
Behrent, M. (1997). Ama Ata Aidoo: Anowa. Retrieved from http://www.postcolonialweb.org/africa/ghana/aidoo/anowa1.html
Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.dbu.edu.org
Lambert, J. M. (n.d.). Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa: Performative Practise and the Postcolonial Subject . Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:miami1133810135
Melanie Lord, A. G. (n.d.). Feminist Theory. Retrieved on 17th January, 2014 from www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/Feminist.ppt‎

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