Representation of Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed as a Metaphor for Defiance

Abstract

Contemporary writers are using literary platforms to voice socio-political concerns. Women writers are fast emerging as the strongest section of civil society. Women writers, just like their male counterparts, question institutional abuse of political latitude by persons in positions of authority. At the same time, these women writers create feedback loops that have the potential to redirect and reshape strategies of governance and administration. These women writers develop women characters that exhibit a peculiarly courageous or risky act of resistance. They defy authoritarian political leadership and stand for what they believe in, yet their works remain largely unexplored. It is in this context that this study examines the depiction of Wangari Maathai's Unbowed as a metaphor for defiance against oppressive socio-political systems. The analysis of this autobiographical text is anchored on Marxist and post-colonial literary theories, as advanced by Tyson (2002) and Spivak (2010), respectively. By unearthing defiant modes of protest, the heterogeneity of resistance is affirmed, and a new domain where art encounters the political is revealed. Maathai’s Unbowed defies conventional literary traditions, steps over the boundary into the domain of socio-political activism and uses her life stories to demonstrate that the subaltern – women’s voices that erstwhile muffled – can now speak and meaningfully contribute to clamour for social justice. The outcomes of this study serve as a key reference point for literary scholarship on social equality, governance and political dissidence.