The Disabled Gender: Gendering Disability in J.M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country and Zaynab Alkali’s The Still Born

Abstract

JM Coetzee and Zaynab Alkali effectively employ the trope of the disabled woman in their novels. However, most of the existing studies on their texts have not adequately examined how these novelists utilised disability tenets to represent the plights and exploits of the postcolonial African woman. Consequently, this paper examines the two-fold issues of gender together with disability as tagged by culture and at the same time incorporated as symbolic portrayal of post colonialism. The paper adopts Postcolonial Feminist Theory and Feminist Disability Studies. The method of investigation is critical, descriptive, comparative and analytical. The study involves a qualitative reading of J. M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country and Zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn which are purposively selected because they are found to be deeply engaged with the postcolonial Africa and they also address a common issue, the disabled African woman, which is central to this study. Magda, the heroine of Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country is depicted as a spinster who becomes disabled through patriarchal suppression. In order to cope with the rejection that life throws at her, Magda escapes into a world of fantasy which later blossoms into psychosis and insanity. Magda's father as a farmer like every other African father expects his first child to be a son. Magda is, therefore, a wrong gender in a society that celebrates maleness. Magda is neglected by her father and the society at large. Consequently, she becomes insane. In Alkali's The Stillborn, Li, the heroine is not disabled physically but is read as disabled by her father and the society because of her psychic power. Li is seen as an extraordinary body which is another form of disability. Her psychic gift coupled with her gender which is frowned at in Hausa culture is linked to her disability. In both novels, the male gender is portrayed as the oppressor, the colonial master and catalysts of disability. Magda's father and every other male in Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country pushed Magda into insanity. This is also applicable to Li who is born with a supernatural gift of seeing into the future. Her father in particular and the society at large rather than seeing this gift as a blessing see it as a disability. Looking at it critically, both writers explore the concept of family members as disabling agents. In the selected texts of Coetzee and Alkali, it is argued that the situation of Magda, Li and other disabled women can be seen as a microcosm of the problems of marginalisation of postcolonial African society from decision making, social life and economic development. The texts, therefore, reveal how women strive to resist sexists practices as a means of empowerment to consciously protest against all forms of oppression and disablement.