Nawal El Saadawi’s Two Women in One and Buchi Emecheta’s Double Yoke: A Comparative Study

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast Nawal El Saadawi’s Two Women in One (1975) and Buchi Emecheta’s Double Yoke (1982), with the view of examining their reconsideration of the gender relations inscribed in the dominant culture in their Egyptian and Nigerian societies respectively. The two novels are strikingly similar in almost every aspect of their narratives. The heroine in each of the two novels is a university student wrestling with the problems of identity and gender oppression. The heroine in each of the two novels is involved in a love relationship with a fellow university student, who either promotes or obstructs her quest for self-realization. Moreover, the titles of the two novels highlight the similar predicaments that the two heroines confront in the context of their patriarchal dominant cultures [1]. However, the study will show that, with the exception of their similar approaches to the female body, the two novels are significantly different in both their handling of gender injustice and their attempt to alter existing gender arrangements. The study takes as its basic thesis the assumption that the significant difference, as well as the similarity, between the two novels can be effectively articulated in the context of Raymond Williams’ conception of cultural emergence. One thinks that an analysis that is grounded in Williams’ robust cultural approach can yield a succinct description not only of the similarity between the two novels concerning their approaches to the female body, but also of the more substantial discrepancy between their approaches to gender injustice and female self-realization.