Abstract
Female characters in many African folktales are often perceived as voiceless and peripheral, playing the role of passive advisors and nurturers in contrast to the physically stronger and more active male characters. Some African scholars have disagreed with this perception, asserting that the female characters are stronger than their male counterparts. In this article I examine the voice and agency of female protagonists in selected retellings of folktales. The aim is to determine the extent to which retellings contest or perpetuate conventions and assumptions about girls and women, and whether the increasing globalisation of these folktales is enhancing the agency of female protagonists and challenging patriarchal paradigms. My analysis suggests that retellings by black female authors and storytellers are more innovative and demonstrate more resistance to patriarchal structures than those by white authors which may have been influenced by the idea of a traditional European folk or fairy tale. Folktales have the potential to effect change in dominant attitudes, and to encourage critical awareness of embedded ideological patterns. To this end, female African storytellers show an ability to retell stories and mould characters in ways that contest the traditional gender roles found in many African folktales.
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Notes
This is one of the main themes of a semi-satirical novel by Cameroonian writer and anthropologist Francis Nyamnjoh, A Nose for Money (2006).
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Judith Inggs is full professor and head of department in the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research interests lie in the fields of both translation studies and children’s and young adult literature. She has previously published on South African children’s and young adult literature, the translation and adaptation of South African folktales, and on censorship and the translation of children’s literature in the former Soviet Union. One of her most recent publications is a monograph on post-apartheid South African young adult literature.
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Inggs, J. Weak or Wily? Girls’ Voices in Tellings and Retellings of African Folktales for Children. Child Lit Educ 52, 342–356 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-020-09421-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-020-09421-w