ISSN 2360-7998
Abstract
This study provides a comparative feminist analysis of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, contextualising the play within the current gender dynamics of Nigeria and South Sudan. Using intersectional, materialist, and postcolonial feminist frameworks, the research examines the functioning of gendered power within literary and sociocultural contexts. The analysis illustrates that Miss Julie dramatises the precariousness of female agency within patriarchal frameworks, where class, sexuality, and psychological conditioning combine to generate both resistance and confinement. By applying this framework to African contexts, the study uncovers both structural continuities and significant divergences. In Nigeria, gender relations are influenced by the interplay of customary law, religion, and contemporary state systems, resulting in contradictions between female empowerment and enduring patriarchal limitations. In South Sudan, conflict, displacement, and traditional customs exacerbate gender inequality while concurrently fostering forms of collective female agency in peacebuilding and survival economies. The dramatic interaction of sexual power is defined by a patriarchal culture of impunity—where violence is used to break social bonds (Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970) This system is rooted in a patriarchal structure that defines women as sexual objects for men's satisfaction and uses violence as a means to express masculinity and maintain power. Comparative analysis underscores that while gendered power appears to be fluid in these contexts, it persists as structurally unequal, perpetuated by social norms, economic frameworks, and symbolic authority. However, the study also criticizes Strindberg's Eurocentric naturalism for its shortcomings, especially its emphasis on individual psychological determinism and its failure to address colonial and racial power dynamics, which limits its applicability to non-Western contexts and overlooks the complexities of gender relations in societies like South Sudan. By integrating African feminist epistemologies, the research reframes Miss Julie as a significant yet incomplete analytical framework. The study contends that although the expressions of patriarchy differ across cultural and historical contexts, the negotiation of female agency continues to be a pervasive global issue. The research enhances feminist literary criticism by connecting European dramatic texts with African socio-political contexts, providing a more nuanced and decolonised understanding of gendered power.
Keywords: Feminist literary criticism, Intersectionality, Patriarchy, African feminism Gender and power