Overhauling Patriarchy: A Feminist Reading of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House and Lola P. Nkamanyang’s The Lock On My Lips

Abstract

This paper examines A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen’s and The Lock on My Lips (The Lock for subsequent usage) by Lola Perpetua Nkamanyang’s with the aim of showing how their heroines seek to overhaul stereotypes regarding gender. These plays from different cultural and historical contexts, follow the trajectory of heroines who though forced to stifle their vibrant personality within patriarchal systems succeed in challenging gender barriers and asserting their identities, individuality, and autonomy. Both heroines realize the oppressive systems they have been subjected to as a result of rigid demarcations of gender perpetuated by patriarchal ideologies and proceed to challenge them as a means of liberating themselves. The study is based on the assumption that the concept of gender is constructed through hegemonic discourses and power hierarchies that maintain the power of men while subjugating women. From a feminist theoretical standpoint, the textual analysis illustrates the artificiality of gender roles, and the findings confirm the view that gender is discursive constructions intended to maintain male power and the marginal position of women. Judith Butler’s ideas of sex and gender and gender performativity as well as Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of socialization are central concepts through which gender is explored in the study.