Female Images and Identity Construction in Bessie Head's Novel:A Case of The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales
Bessie Head(1937-1986)was a female Botswanan writer.In the short story collection The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales(1974),Head portrays different types of images of African female images,which I propose to research from the feminist perspective using postcolonialism theory,among other research approaches.It can be seen that there are three profiles of the diachronic extension of Botswanan women's lives in Head's short stories.The first involves rural female villagers who were affected by Botswana's rural traditions and colonially oppressed communities in the conservative state of Botswana;the second refers to female prisoners who used violence as a weapon to fight against male domination in prisons and to escape colonial oppression in Botswana,and the third depicts the"new women"who participated in writing and the construction of identity in the beneficial aftermath of ideological edification in Botswana.In general,Head draws on images of women such as villagers,prisoners,and new women to depict these women's unrelenting efforts and struggles of women in Botswana who were attempting to find themselves and to gain power in society.Head aims to build a stairway to the stars and to speak for silent African women through her autobiographical writing;in doing so she also constructed independent and creative female identities.
Bessie HeadBotswanaThe Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village TalesAfrican female imagesidentity constructionpostcolonialismfeminism
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