<i>Marcande</i> Ceremony: A Space for Subversion and Reclaiming a Voice
- 1 Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Abdou Moumouni University, Niamey, Niger
- 2 Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Abdou Moumouni University, Niamey, Niger
Abstract
This article analyses a specific arena where women (the friends and relatives of a senior wife) perform songs and dances to “celebrate” the arrival of a new wife in a context where polygamy is culturally and legally allowed. The article analyses four songs to bring out their subversive nature. It also demonstrates how the songs represent a means of reclaiming a voice in a patriarchal context. The songs are divided into two types: the more didactic and less obscene type and the second type, which is more provocative and obscene. In both categories, the woman subverts cultural norms and claims a voice that the culture denies her. In the process of analyzing the current paper, we tentatively use Elaine Showalter’s feminist theory of gynocritics to analyze few songs from this specific place of creativity, in order to see how women subvert patriarchal norms and how they claim a voice to express how they feel on this particular occasion.
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