Patriarchal Subjugation And Female Liberation In Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen

Patriarchy is the supremacy of men over women and children beginning from the basic unit of a family and has its roots and branches over the public sphere. Female subjugation refers to any attempts made to keep women in an inferior position through control. Women are controlled, possessed and even commodified in a way that devalues them. They face battering, sexual harassment and violence everyday within the four walls. This has not utterly defeated women but they too have started reacting to this kind of oppression and has inspired them to take daring steps towards liberty and various other new avenues. Liberation is the act of freeing oneself from any forms of oppression and living in freedom. This paper attempts to do a study on patriarchal subjugation within a family. The study contributes to the liberation of women through resistance, education and assertiveness seeking a new liberated self in the selected novel of Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen.