Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • A Girls Who Can

    Uploaded by

    Waham Areum
    390 views2 pages
    This document provides an analysis of the short story "The Girl Who Can" by Ama Ata Aidoo. It discusses how the story exemplifies Aidoo's feminist themes and portrayal of the modern African woman. The story is about a young girl named Adjoa who lives in a traditional society that underestimates her abilities despite her mother's support. Adjoa struggles against the societal expectations of women and proves herself by winning a running competition. Through Adjoa's journey, Aidoo criticizes societal stereotypes that define women based on attributes like physical appearance or role as wife and mother rather than their own strengths and potential.

    Original Description:

    Original Title

    A GIRLS WHO CAN

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    This document provides an analysis of the short story "The Girl Who Can" by Ama Ata Aidoo. It discusses how the story exemplifies Aidoo's feminist themes and portrayal of the modern African woman. The story is about a young girl named Adjoa who lives in a traditional society that underestimates her abilities despite her mother's support. Adjoa struggles against the societal expectations of women and proves herself by winning a running competition. Through Adjoa's journey, Aidoo criticizes societal stereotypes that define women based on attributes like physical appearance or role as wife and mother rather than their own strengths and potential.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    390 views2 pages

    A Girls Who Can

    Uploaded by

    Waham Areum
    This document provides an analysis of the short story "The Girl Who Can" by Ama Ata Aidoo. It discusses how the story exemplifies Aidoo's feminist themes and portrayal of the modern African woman. The story is about a young girl named Adjoa who lives in a traditional society that underestimates her abilities despite her mother's support. Adjoa struggles against the societal expectations of women and proves herself by winning a running competition. Through Adjoa's journey, Aidoo criticizes societal stereotypes that define women based on attributes like physical appearance or role as wife and mother rather than their own strengths and potential.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    A GIRLS WHO CAN

    "We are victims of our history and our present. They place too many obstacles in the
    way of love. And we cannot enjoy even our differences in peace." (Our Sister Killjoy)
    This quote perfectly exemplifies Aidoo's literary landscape which carries the desert of the
    harsh history of Africa on its back and the oasis sprung from the heart of this desert, the
    modern African woman who is an infinitely complex and multidimensional character
    projecting a ray of hope for the redemption and glory of all African nations.
    Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the precursors in ushering the feminist movement in African
    literature. Aidoo in an interview candidly states that "as an Akan, Fante woman, I grew up
    in a society where there was not much discrimination against girls. That is why I could
    be a writer and nobody could tell me writing was a man's job". She expresses her fear
    that Ghanaian women haven't properly utilised the freedom they inherited and that it leaves
    the space open for men to move in to colonise them. Aidoo is a staunch feminist who believes
    that men should be feminists too.
    Aidoo very much came from a gender liberal household that did not put express pressure on
    her to learn how to cook, clean or do things considered “a woman's duty." Aidoo recognises
    the importance of both women and their education in shaping the future of Ghana and all of
    Africa. 
    The Girl Who Can by Ama Ata Aidoo is a short story about an African little girl who lives in
    a traditional society. Adjoa, the central character fights against female’s right in the society
    she lives in because she has imperfect physic. Her grandmother and her neighbours keep
    underestimating her although her mom supports her because her mom doesn’t want her to
    regret her past like her mother does.

    Feminism in The Girl Who Can


     According to Barbara Ryan in Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change
    in Social Movement Ideology, and Activism (1992:84) states that feminism
    “Is a movement for the liberation of women which, because women’s oppression is
    deeply embedded in everything, must necessarily, then, be a movement for the
    transformation of the whole society”.
    In The Girl Who Can, Adjoa struggles to fight for her rights as a girl. She lives in a remote
    area and judging society who think her ideas and opinions don’t matter. Society where she
    lives in doesn’t believe that women should go to school and express their opinions. They still
    think that women truest role is to become wife, bear children, and serve the family. It can be
    seen from Adjoa’s grandmother and her neighbours.
    “You see how neither way of hearing me out can encourage me to express my thoughts
    too often?” 
    and, “School is another thing Nana and my mother discussed often and appeared to
    have different ideas about.”
      The society she lives in fails to see that a woman doesn’t have to be married and give birth
    for a woman to be perfect and powerful, Aidoo wants to highlight this issue as a critic for
    society. At the end of story, Adjoa wins the running competition and finally succeed in
    proving everyone especially Nana that she can be powerful and worth to be proud of despise
    her physical condition that counts as imperfect for a girl. That any imperfect condition a
    woman has which defined by society, doesn’t define a woman herself.
    Conclusion
    Ama Ata Aidoo wants us to see that stereotypes of woman which created by society has to
    come to an end. For many years women had lived a life according to society’s perspective
    that women are weak and inferior to man.  How Adjoa finally opens her grandmother’s heart
    shows that woman’s movement is possible and woman also can be as successful as man.

    You might also like