The Psycho-Spiritual Journey of an Igbo Androgyny: Efuru’s Quest for Her Higher Self in Efuru, Flora Nwapa’s Eponymous Novel

Ada Uzoamaka Azodo. “The Psycho-Spiritual Journey of an Igbo Androgyny: Efuru’s Quest for Her Higher Self in Efuru, Flora Nwapa’s Eponymous Novel.” Igbo Studies Review (ISR) , Goldline & Jacobs Publishing , no. 8, 2020 , pp. 58-91 .

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Abstract

Efuru’s¹ Psycho-Spiritual Journey in Flora Nwapa’s eponymous novel, Efuru, retraces Maureen Murdoch’s The Heroine’s Journey, a gendered modification of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey,² which is a cyclical and archetypal mapping of the idea of life as a continuous search for self-identity and purpose espoused in his Theory of the Monomyth. At journey’s end, the hero or heroine returns home renewed, wiser and integrated for self and service to the community. Employing the combined critical methodologies of the imaginary, semiotics, and reader-response--- Roland Barthes’ ideas of the readerly and writerly texts---this study seeks to derive extra meaning from the metanarrative beyond the pre-established, stable meaning of the text. From this angle of vision, all of Flora Nwapa’s heroine’s trials and tribulations are signposts of her reemergence, healing and wholesomeness, and are not by any means misfortunes. At her apotheosis, like Uha-miri, the Goddess of the Lake, her mirror image, ally, spiritual guide, and male-identified mentor of the spirit world, triumphant Efuru metamorphoses into a moral warrior against endemic and paralyzing patriarchy, becoming a role model of courage, endurance, and female empowerment.

Author(s): Ada Uzoamaka Azodo

About the author(s)

Published: May 21, 2020

Journal: Igbo Studies Review (ISR)

Issue: 8

Pages: 58-91

Keywords: journey, sacrifice, guide, spirituality, hero, heroine, model, patriarchy

Publisher: Goldline & Jacobs Publishing

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