Changes: A Love Story
An Insightful Novel by Ama Ata Aidoo About African Feminist Issues
Apr 26, 2008
Published in 1991 Ama Ata Aidoo’s novel Changes: A Love Story presents the tale of three Akan women living in Accra, Ghana who feel the challenges of being ambitious, resourceful women in a patriarchal society. Rather than to portray Esi, Opokuya and Fusena as powerless and subjugated, Aidoo creates believable female characters who reflect the current feminist issues faced by African women.
Esi
In itself Esi’s character truly embodies the reality of modern African women living in urban areas. With a college degree and a prominent career in the Department of Urban Statistics she attains personal fulfillment beyond her domestic roles of mother and wife. However, many people in her entourage, including her in-laws, criticize her success and claim that she emasculates her husband.
Opokuya
Opokuya, on the other hand, balances both her professional life and domestic duties quite well; nevertheless she struggles to be treated as an equal by her spouse. The mother of four, who enjoys her busy career as a state registered nurse and qualified midwife, has yet to convince her husband to purchase her own car. More than just a luxury, this car would help Opokuya be more self-reliant, and certainly her husband’s refusal speaks volumes on his perspective on female independence.
Fusena
Fusena, once a young woman thriving off of her academic achievements, must now sacrifice her own dreams of obtaining a college degree to favour her husband’s burgeoning career. Burdened with the impossibility to blossom outside of the domestic sphere she is resigned to accept her fate. The young Muslim couple live according to tradition and much to Fusena’s dismay her husband decides to perpetuate the age-old tradition of polygyny by marrying his mistress: a successful college-graduate.
Issues in African Feminism
Aidoo’s narrative tackles sensitive issues in West African feminism and allows her characters to take part in important dialogues about divorce, marital rape, the alienation of single women, female subjugation and education as a form of female empowerment. Much more than a portrait of urban Akan women, this story speaks to all women entrapped between patriarchal expectations for women and the insatiable, and presumed selfish desire for personal growth.
An accomplished playwright and poet, Aidoo was awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in 1992, as well as the Northeast Modern Language Association Book Award in 1993. She is also the author of The Dilemma of a Ghost, Our Sister Killjoy and The Girl Who Can and Other Stories.
Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes: A Love Story. New York: The Feminist Press. ISBN 1-55861-064-2
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