Hayat kadınlığına giden yol: Ngugi’nin Wanja’sı ve Ekwensi’nin Jagua Nana'sı

Abstract

Every individual has to make decisions that will significantly affect their destinies/futures at certain periods of their lives. Sometimes they take these decisions in line with their own wishes, and sometimes have to take it because of external factors and against their own wills. Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wanja and Nigerian writer Cyprian Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana, who are the subject of this study, also make decisions that will change the course of their lives in the end and they begin to live by means of prostitution. Both characters choose this profession for separate purposes/reasons, however, the profession they want/have to do is the same. In general, prostitution, which is perceived as inappropriate for the moral codes, beliefs and lifestyles of the society in most regions, is carried out professionally and systematically in today’s Kenya and Nigeria. Prostitution, mostly preferred for economic reasons, has even become a tourism sector. The major factor behind is the colonial past, which seriously affected the African continent and left deep scars in the lives of the people living in the region. Therefore, in the light of these elements, while examining the preferences of Wanja and Jagua Nana, the condition of women in the colonized lands, how colonialism affected these native women as well as the relationship between colonialism and prostitution will also be examined in this study for they are the background forces that have triggered such choices.