
































Of Patriarchy, Gender, Paradox and Inference: A Feminist Import in Amma Darko’s
Faceless

Luke Okolo

Abstract

Ever since the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s A Vindication of the Rights of
Women in 1792 and John Staurt Mill’s The Subjection of Women in 1869, about seven decades
later on the English landscape, and Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century in 1845
in America, feminism, in its variegated shapes, has gradually overtaken the literary landscape.
From the first generation of African women writers till the present time, women have been
agitating against the social and political structure that oppresses them. Recently, male writers
have joined hands with their female counterparts in the campaign to advance the issue of
women’s demand for equality of both male and female gender. In Faceless, Amma Darko gives
makes some inferential statement about the plight of African women. She is most concerned with
the challenges of the girl-child who eventually becomes a mother. Through the image of Fofo
and Maa Tsuru, we see the female endangered specie. The novelist, as an African womanist,
emphasises that various woes suffered by African women have their origin in the patriarchal
tradition. She deploys her stylistic elements of gender identity, paradox, and symbol to make
inferential statement about the future of African society. The novelist, through the use of
characterisation and other literary devices, asserts that in spite of dehumanisation women and
girls have continued to receive from the male gender, the future of Africa lies in harmonious and
collaborative relationship of both sexes, both in domestic affair and in official engagements. The
resolution of the novel suggests that the two genders complementarity is essential for maximum
productivity and health of the family and the larger society.

Keyword: patriarchy; gender; paradox; symbol; and inference

Introduction

Amma Darko has emerged a popular and impactful novelist of Ghanaian descent fit enough to
wear the garbs of Ama Ata Aidoo, on the one hand as a feminist, and Ayi Kwei Armah, on
another hand as a social novelist. Her two novels – Beyond the Horizon and Faceless – clearly
announced her ability and creative literary mission on and for Africa. She is seen to be concerned



about the plight of women of Africa, who are perceived to be yoked down by patriarchy and so
doomed to stagnation and self-destruction on the one hand, and the imperialist racial
discrimination on the other hand.

In Africa, patriarchy has been identified as the underlying cause of various forms of deprivation,
oppression and suppression suffered by women, and sometimes, children. In “Feminist
Tendencies in West African Drama: An Analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa”, Monique
Ekpong avers that patriarchy is an institutionalised problem. She quotes Kate Millet to have
defined patriarchy as a “system of sexual relationship institutionalized in our social order
whereby males rule females as a matter of birthright priority” (21). Ekpong attempts to explicate
the concept further and states thus:

The male nature has been used to connote virility, force, aggression, efficacy, intelligence
and superiority; whereas the female nature has been used to symbolise weakness,
dependence, passivity, docility, ineffectuality, ignorance and inferiority. Women
biological identity has thus been used to determine their destiny, limit their physical and
mental capabilities and marginalise them from social polity. The prejudice of male
supremacy has thus been entrenched in the socialisation of both men and women through
patriarchy and through a value system which ascribes inferiority to women and sustains
that wrong idea through the notion of femininity (21-22).

The above assertion by Ekpong identifies the features of patriarchy, which Darko, through her
novels opposes. We shall return to this later in this paper.

Gender as a term, in the recent past, referred to the anatomical feature of sex, which characterises
a human being a male or female. To Abrams and Harpham, it is “the traits that are conceived to
constitute what is masculine and what is feminine in temperament and behaviour” (122). In other
words, there are certain social and cultural assumptions on how different genders conduct
themselves; hence it is referred to as a social construct. This perception of genders and their traits
are adjudged to favour men and so regarded as “pervasive patriarchal biases of our civilisation”
(Abrams and Harpham 122). Recent studies indicate that the concept of gender has shifted away
from the traditional anatomical designation to individual’s personal identification. In this case,
the onus now lies on the individual to take up or identify oneself as belonging to a particular
gender irrespective of sex. In other words, gender is self-determined, instead of a “social
construct”; it is “individual or self construct”. It is in this perspective that Ontario Human Rights
Commission explains gender identity as “a person’s sense of being a woman, a man, both,
neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum” (ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-preventing-dis…). In
Africa, gender perception has always emphasised the anatomical cum social construct contrary to
the idea of self-construct. It is in that light that this paper looks at gender and its relations; it is
not to make a detailed clarification about gender perceptions.



Paradox is both a figure of speech (figurative expression) and a literary technique. In Elements of
Literature, Robert Anderson et al. explain that paradox is “an apparent contradiction that is
actually true. A paradox may be a statement or a situation; as a statement it is a figure of speech”
(1245). It is from this dual perception of statement and situation that the concept will be
employed to interpret the creative mission of Darko in Faceless.

It is the thesis of this paper that Amma Darko contrives complex paradoxes of gender in Faceless
that reveal her statement about her angle or what many scholars call the strand of feminism she
aligns with. This is the accommodationist school of African feminism. Of the school, Charles
Nnolim states:

These are all creative writers who are not really out to preach total equality with men.
While they advocate some measure of equality, they concede a leadership role to the man
and do not contest headship of the family. In their works, they stress as womanists do, the
unity of man and woman in spite of bickering, misunderstandings, and the jostling for
power. Reconciliation, not separation; convergence, not divergence; love, not hatred;
affection, not mere passion; a pooling together of resources, not a scattering; a building
together, not destruction of the latent love between the two sexes; an establishment of the
family under patriarchy, not advocacy for a new arrangement (138).

It thus implies that Amma Darko’s mission is not to destroy or uproot patriarchy, but to point out
what should be taken care off to achieve a more peaceable society and robust economy.

At the beginning, we are presented with the innocent street girl, Fofo, whose mother, MaaTsuru,
is found to be helpless and incapable of habouring her in her own care. Her handicap is double:
one, she cannot afford to feed her and her younger ones. Two, she is afraid that Poison the pimp
is going to snatch Fofo from her as he has threatened to do. Fofo is unprotected against the
powerful and the fearless pimp and street lord known as Poison and Macho his ally, who
terrorise Sodom and Gomorrah enclave. He is called “Poison of the street” (3). The
foregrounding of Chapter One is a clear indication the novelist is out to make a case between the
two figures: Fofo and Poison – who represent the female and male genders; where one (feminine)
is exposed to danger, fear, and shown to be innocent, deprived, oppressed, depressed, weak,
helpless, fragile; and the other (masculine) is complex, trickery, powerful, bold, fearless, strong,
imposing, threatening, and destructive. These opposing features of the female and male
symbolised by Fofo and Poison dominate the entire work, except for Sylv Po and the staff of
MUTE.

Men, the patriarchal symbols, do not suffer any form of punishment from civil or customary
authority. Men like Maa Tsuru’s father, Kwei, Kpakpo, Onko, Poison and Macho ought to be
held responsible for their irresponsible acts of rape, robbery, deceit, child trafficking,
conscription, deceit, and fornication, but nothing of the sort happens. Instead, women like Maa



Tsuru, Baby T, and Fofo bear the yoke of their recklessness. This implies that their oppression is
institutionalised. It is paradoxical, however, that the yoked women are rather unwilling to resist
men. Likewise, men cannot resist women. Take for instance; Maa Tsuru readily opens her doors
wide for any man that knocks on her door ranging from Kwei the father of Baby T, Fofo and the
absconded two boys, and to Kpakpo the father of the two little toddlers. The men and woman
find each other irresistible and return to their usual nuptial life after a respite of quarrel or regrets.

The case is similar with Adede and Kabria in spite of their education. Adede continues to assert
his superiority/masculine advantage against his wife. Kabria is fully aware of various ways
Adede is maltreating her as a wife. For instance, he would always get up from the bed late with a
newspaper in hand to read while his wife runs giddy doing domestic chores and getting their
children ready for school with Creamy – the old Volkwagen car – that keeps disappointing her
frequently. Attempts to elicit his attention while perusing a newspaper is responded to with
hostility – “Kabria!...can we talk about this after work” (32) simply to evade the discussion. He
always exhibits chauvinistic attitude to assert his position as a man and patriarch. For example,
the commendation Adede gives her for her efforts at getting their children up to their
responsibilities is demoralising her even the more: “Why is it that you and your children always
turn this house into a concert hall every morning” (32). Kabria condones all those and remains
faithful and hardworking in the interest of everyone.

Maa Tsuru’s mother cursed her lover that impregnated her – “the young man responsible, that is
Tsuru’s father, denied the pregnancy” (92). Tsuru and the larger society believe in literal
meaning of the superstition peddled as being responsible for her woes. Like Naa Yomo attests,
“It’s the curse” (91), but paradoxically. She knows in truth, Tsuru is not fated by any curse. The
curse is a mere superstition that Tsuru has yielded to that prevails on her psyche that beclouds
her reasoning, making her resign to the purported ill-fate. Naa Yomo makes this explicit to
Kabria and Vikie.

When the seed of a curse finds fertile ground in a human mind, it spreads with the destructive
speed of a creeping plant. And while it does, it nurtures superstition, which in turn, eats into all
reasoning abilities and the capability of facing responsibilities (91).

Tsuru’s problem is paradox solution of which lies in the truth of the last clause. Two factors
could be analytically seen interplay in her lot. Before the explication of the factors, it is
important to emphasise at this point that the mission of Darko is to dismantle these barriers that
militate not only against Tsuru, but have also become the primordial impediments for women of
Africa.

While Tsuru’s mother curses her lover and his generation; she never counted Tsuru as one of
those. The woman curses her man and patriarchy, the institution that makes him errant, reckless
and irresponsible lord, who declines his responsibility of offering her the needed support that



initial union entails; she curses the system that excessively empowers men and disempowers
women to miserable dependants; a system that makes one superior and renders the other inferior
partner; the system that makes one a prey to the other, a system of abject inequality. In other
words, Tsuru’s mother never cursed her but the patriarchal institution in its entirety. It is an
intended blow on the system that has been destroying women.

The paradox is that Tsuru instead of suffering the supposed curse of her mother against her father
suffers the “curse of patriarchy”. This curse of patriarchy implies social realities of the
patriarchal order. She suffers dual deficiencies: economic and psychosocial. All through the
novel there is no expression suggesting Tsuru was ever engaged in any job or business, and she
is not in any way educated. In respect of her economic life, the novelist states:

Maa Tsuru had been without a man since Kwei disappeared from their lives. She wasn’t in any
regular job either. Following the death of her aunt in whose kenkey business she was employed,
she only contended herself with odd jobs now and then. She would work a few days at a kenkey
house or do people’s washing for a fee. She never stay on one job for long because her two sons
kept them going with the money and free fish they brought in daily from the seaside and the fish
market. Fofo and Baby T were also bringing home money from the streets. It wasn’t living, but
they were surviving fairly well (128-9).

She has never striven to be economically independent. She has, instead, relied mainly on bits of
earnings from the daily struggles of her children. She grows up and accepted the prevailing
system where man is the producer and woman consumer; man is perceived as strong and woman
weak; man is the giver and woman the receiver; man is independent and woman dependent. It is
this social orientation that, in one perspective, afflicts Tsuru as she cannot fend for herself. So
she depends on one individual or another who are usually men. She is, therefore, exposed and
economically defenceless. She lacks the courage to stand on her feet and own her life. This
accounts for her seclusion inside a one room apartment she inherited from the family line. She
can neither feed herself nor her children. It is this economic weakness that culminates in her two
girls – Baby T and Fofo – and the other two boys becoming street children to fend for themselves;
the climax of which is murder of Baby T as a trafficked sex worker; while Fofo nearly lost her
life disguised as a pick-pocket boy at the Agbogbloshie market.

Another proof to that argument is the case of Odarley, a fellow street girl and friend of Fofo.
According to Fofo, “Odarley’s mother sacks her like a fowl when she goes to see her. She says
Odarley is a thief” (25). Then, we begin to think that Odarley’s mother is a widow or single
parent, and so cannot take care of her. So she pushes her into the street to eke her living, and
possibly, make some returns home. However, while in the care of MUTE, Fofo clarifies to Dina
that Odarley did not just leave home for the street, but was forced out to the street by the mother.
“She is a bad mother. She just didn’t want Odarley around after Odarley’s father left her for
another woman and she too found another man” (103). So other indigent women submit to the
same survival instinct. It is Tsuru’s indigence that is responsible for her promiscuous experiences



with men. It is responsible for her willingness to accept any man that passes her way without
proper scrutiny. She is too eager to go into the cover of a man, offer him unrestrained access into
her womanhood, to devour and still abandon her at will. The prevailing political setting does not
readily support vibrant men like Kwei economically. It supports only reputable men. Then, in her
urgent quest to earn her living from men’s pockets, she remains vulnerable to the whims and
caprices of parasitic and lazy paupers like Kpakpo, who prefer to run under the patronage of such
repressed women. These men end up breeding children, the sure result of their unrestrained
sexual escapades. The task of taking care of these children is then left to the woman alone, who
can hardly take care of herself; hence her life is a miserable one. Here she is torn apart by the
physical pains and worries of hunger and self care and psychological trauma about the fate of her
four children – one of whom is already declared murdered by her own fault.

It follows, therefore, that Tsuru grappling with a curse is a paradoxical situation. She suffers
patriarchal curse – condemnation that stems from the social structure, and then, her descent into
the woeful situation owing to her inability to shake off the feminine attitude. This, of course, is
another pronounced campaign of Darko. A campaign to awaken the consciousness of women; to
rid themselves of the old imposed self-identity and pick up a new identity whereby they can
legitimately earn their living and take care of their children, with or without the support of a man.
She emphasises this by creating Tsuru’s foil in Kabria who carries on and pushes through the
challenges of her work at MUTE and family responsibility, which include taking care of her
children’s education and contributing to the family financial upkeep, not relying on Adede her
husband alone. With that, she maintains her dignity and independence, at least, to a certain
degree.

Another interesting paradox is Onko’s affliction. Onko is promiscuous. He “had made two sons
from two different women, each of whom lived in their own respective family homes” (128).
This suggests that he never married either of the two women. It is possible they are the likes of
Tsuru. Onko defiles Baby T, a girl-child and relative. With his economic downturn, he holds the
popular belief (superstition) that Tsuru is under the much talked generational curse, which
definitely, she has transferred to her children. He suspects that he contracted the curse during
defilement of Baby T. Onko is under a different spell. For male chauvinism that makes men in
patriarchal societies to think of themselves as holy, sane, and innocent, Onko relies on the
superstition of Tsuru as a cursed woman along with her offspring. This compounded his problem.
The narrator informs us that

after listening carefully to Onko’s narration of what Onko claimed he suspected to be the
cause of his business woes which was that the girl he defiled, was the daughter of a
cursed woman. The jujuman, the moment he became privy to this information, wasted no
time at all in prescribing the requirement to diffuse what he immediately diagnosed to be
mix up of Onko’s good blood with that of Baby T’s polluted and cursed blood (189).



The climax of his strategy of getting Baby T’s pubic hair – one of the requirements needed – to
exorcise him of the curse is the eventual murder of her. Tsuru’s curse, obviously, is not
responsible for his woes. It is clear that Onko is being eaten up psychologically for raping the
child and several other forms of sexual aberration. In other words, Onko is truly the accursed. He
is weighed down by his libidinal flaw which makes him violate natural course; and as a result, he
descended into lewd and immoral enchantment. This penchant for extra-marital sex is seen to be
a huge burden, not only on Onko, but also on Kwei and Kpakpo, as the three who cannot guard
their excessive libidinal affinity continue to suffer several afflictions in their businesses and jobs
without remedy. One can infer, then, that the perceived freedom for men to “use and throw
away” women at will contravenes natural order; and as a result, attracts curses from natural
forces; or that such life makes them spend beyond their earnings as they try to please their
mistresses.

The Character Perspective and Inference

In The Art of Compelling Fiction, Christopher Leland argues that “plot and language give fiction
its form, much of its colour and heft… But characters are what give it a spirit” (165). It follows
that character embodies the virility; the moving force; the actualizing enablement; the
capacitating and enforcing power of realism and revolution. Character, unarguably, is a stylistic
instrument of meaning, capable of complicating and explicating moral and psychological
inferences of a literary work. Amma Darko’s Faceless appears to be a simple work judging by its
narrative techniques, but is found to be a bit complex. The novel is made complex with stylistic
deployment of juxtaposition, apposition, and symbolism as character techniques. It is by
interpreting these techniques that we understand the depth of the novel and the novelist’s
statement about the patriarchal Ghanaian society.

Inference is “a conclusion that has been reached by way of evidence and reasoning”
(https://www.mometrix.com/academy/inference). It is a deduction, conclusion, or judgement
arrived at by evidential facts or reasoning. It is a product of a set of premises or propositions.
Inferences to the characters in respect to their actions and situations that determine their actions
will enable us understand the creative technique and the critical interpretation – the overall
inference as intended by the novelist.

The novelist experiments with juxtaposition and character mapping. Characters like Poison,
Macho, and the Inspector are mere juxtaposition to Fofo, Odarley and NaaYomo respectively.
The first set of characters is all male just like the second is all female. Poison, being the
antagonist of the novel, is found to be really a poison that everyone wants to stay out of his way.
He is daring and deadly both in action, word, and appearance and characteristic of a patriarchy.
Macho, in the same way, is seen to be daring, oppressive, and an accomplice of Poison. The
Inspector is depicted to be the oldest male in the work. He is complex and secretive, unwilling,
unyielding, unconcerned, and hostile. The general atmosphere of his office signifies decay,
anomie, hopelessness, depression, anarchy, and suffocation. His attitude and that of his



workplace are demoralising and depressing. Contrary to these male characters are the female.
Foremost among the female is Fofo who appears to be the youngest of all the characters. She is
innocent, wise, smart, sincere, and courageous. Odarley is a friend of Fofo. Like her friend, she
is courageous, sincere, smart, sensible, innocent, and willing to help. With this cursory character
sketch, we can observe two significant features in the making of the characters: that the novelist
makes some kind of gender-based character mapping. The mapping is oppositional – a
juxtaposition of male characters against their female counterpart. The mapping, of course is no
mere coincidence. It is a means of non-verbal submission – a non-linguistic assertion about the
prevailing African society.

Fofo, for instance, is a direct juxtaposition of Poison both in gender and character traits. She is
oppressed, exploited, weak, traumatised, depressed, deprived, and of course, a wanderer. She is
abandoned to face a hopeless and hostile society. Poison is her oppressor (and the oppressor of
other street children) and a pimp who oppresses other females, both young and old who work
under his control. In other words, Poison is the exploiter, the powerful who has right of
expression. He is free to do whatever he likes, and is found to be powerful as to decide what
children and women in the Sodom and Gomorrah enclave do. Similarly, Naa Yomo is juxtaposed
to the Police Inspector. The old Naa Yomo is an embodiment of morality, caring about everyone
around her. She is a source of hope and willing to cooperate with people of goodwill. She is
eager to play her role as a matriarch. The Police Inspector is unlike her. He is unconcerned about
social morality and security despite his primary responsibility of social security. He has lost good
sense of morality and has little or no concern about the future of the society. He is unyielding
and unwilling to cooperate with staff of MUTE on a matter he is supposed to champion. As a
father and protector, he failed in his duty as police and patriarch. He is more or less, a misfit.

Apposition of characters is concerned with characters that are alike, either in their gender
identification or character or both. Darko has two classes of character: the uneducated and the
educated. The uneducated are further divided into two based on gender – male and female. Each
group shares a number of qualities and experiences. In other words, members of each set are
related by some common factors – they share similar bonding. The bonding they share is what
makes them appositional. In that case, each group is in opposition to the other, and so they run
like two parallel lines. Fofo, Tsuru, Odarley, Baby T, and Maami Broni constitute the female set
of the first class. They are females who find themselves helplessly engaged in certain self-
demeaning lifestyle to survive economically. The worst hit are the innocent girl-children – Fofo
and Odarley who are chased out and abandoned on the hostile streets to fend for themselves –
and Tsuru who has to accept Kpakpo and Kwei out of the yearning for a man’s care and
protection, yet these still elude her and left her more broken than ever.

On the male side, Poison, Macho, Kpakpo, Kwei, and Onko are all predatory. They scavenge on
the weak female, young and adult. They depend on their physical strength and are aided by social



custom. It is the advantage that empowers Poison to be the pimp of Maami Broni, who is older
than him, and dictates what she does or does not. He hunts girls and traffics them. For instance,
in an interview session with Sylv Po on the death of Baby T and murderous beating given to
Fofo, he admits:

I did beat the girl up, but I did not kill her…why would I kill a girl who was making lots of
money for me? Maami Broni would bear me out. You can talk to her if you like. I did beat her up
but I left her crying, not dead… (173).

It is this fear of being murdered that makes Fofo disguise and take up the identity of a boy (male
gender), signifying that violence could force one make a far reaching decision including gender
identification. However, that is outside the focus of this study.

The educated class constitutes both male and female. This is a class of intellectuals who are in
search for a prosperous and harmonious society where every individual is protected and treated
like human. They seek a society where the gap between the two sexes is closed and the gulf
between the classes bridged. No gender would take undue advantage of the other, rather each
working with his or her ability for the peace and progress of all sexes. This class is constituted by
the Harvest FM presenter of Good Morning Ghana (GMG), Sylv Po and the staff of MUTE –
Dina, Kabria, Vickie, and Aggie. The five are educated and find a civil way of solving every
problem. For example, in spite of provocative attitude of Adede, Kabria condones his
inadequacies. She makes necessary physical and monetary contributions for smooth running of
the family. The conflict and complications in the novel find resolution through collaborative
efforts of the five characters.

Symbol as an Aspect of Meaning

The Aspect of meaning that Darko deployed is the use of symbols – signifiers. A symbol is “a
person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself”
(Anderson et al 1249). This view is echoed by Abrams and Harpham who submit that a symbol
“is applied to a word or phrase that signifies an object or event which in its turn signifies
something, or suggests a range of references, beyond itself” (394). A number of characters and
incidents in the novel are symbolic. This implies that they have signification beyond the literal;
that is, they suggest a range of references beyond the literal expression. The unravelling of
meaning of the symbols could be referred to as inference.

From the beginning of the novel, we see Fofo (we should take cognizance of analysis of the
characters thus far), an innocent girl exposed to the hostile environment and hungry, too. She is
dreaming for a better future. This dream of is thwarted by Poison who pounces on her to satisfy
his sexual urge, and perhaps, to conscript her into his brothel for pecuniary benefit. This scenario
is symbolic of the status of women in the patriarchal setting. Similar to that is Onko’s rape of
Baby T that culminated in her conscription and eventual murder. With that incident, her dream
veers around and her mother is thrown into psychological trauma. Again, a closer analysis of the



plight of Tsuru suggests that all the men who at one time or another had intercourse with her are,
ab initio, fully aware of the superstition surrounding her and her children, yet decided to go
ahead with her. None did that under any spell. None is cajoled in any way. None is completely
ignorant before the love affair. It is, however, worthy of note that old NaaYomo is a symbol, so
also Adede and the Police Inspector. All the incidents and persons cited are symbolic. They
symboylise a number the nature of man and woman: opposite genders and apposite in meaning.

We can, therefore, infer that Fofo’s encounter with Poison imply that male gender and patriarchy
are responsible for the perceived weakness of feminine gender in Africa. It shows that women of
Africa have always had gigantic dreams; but they are ambushed by the patriarchal structure that
suppress and deny women the opportunity to pursue their dreams. They are coerced into
accepting slavish and susceptible lifestyle, and so are hoodwinked into accepting “second class”
position as nature-imposed. Baby T’s encounter with Onko could suggest: one, women are
susceptible to men, because men are economically favoured. We adduce this meaning when we
consider the circumstance that makes him have access to Baby T in his room. But again, that
incident is a derogatory one, inferring that men are, in actuality, psychologically weak and
emotionally unstable. We find it derogatory when we ask the question, “What is the essence of
Onko taking advantage of a minor?” This is a girl who calls him Uncle indicating blood
relationship and trust, too. His lust, libidinal excesses, pushes him to descend from his exalted
position as a progressive and economically buoyant welder to bankruptcy. Darko writes:

In seeking the jujuman’s intervention to revamp his business, Onko sought an
impracticable solution to a practicable problem…after listening carefully to Onko’s
narration of what Onko claimed he suspected to be the cause of his business woes which
was that the girl he defiled, was the daughter the daughter of a cursed woman. The
jujuman, the moment he became privy to this information, wasted no time at all in
prescribing the requirements to diffuse what he immediately diagnosed to be a mix up of
Onko’s good blood with that of Baby T’s polluted and cursed blood (184-5)

He goes ahead to prescribe “a strand of Baby T’s pubic hair” believing it will be impossible for
him to obtain. His handsome pay paves way for him as poison orders Baby T yield to his demand
for sex, in a bid to get a strand of her pubic hair for the jujuman to exorcise him of the curse.
Unexpectedly to both, Poison bullies Baby T to death, but the jujuman’s art is impotent to
Onko’s “curse”. It is a pointer that lust, is often time, responsible for failure of men.

The case of Tsuru suggests that she is under the psychological influence of a mere superstition.
The superstition reduces her dignity of self. Kpakpo explores that avenue to exploit her. “You
know how everyone around here feels about the curse on your head, don’t you?...my family is no
exception. They will not take kindly to our relationship. So I will be visiting you” (129). She
feels lonely, dejected, and unhappy. Coupled with the fact that she is idle and in abject poverty,
she takes in any man that presents himself to her. More importantly, it is a re-echoing of the
belief that women are seen as object for pleasure. They are gone back to whenever there is need



again to quell the libidinal fire. Naa Yomo is a link between old and new generations. She is a
matriarch symbolic of motherhood, which typifies care and resilience; while the Inspector, a
patriarch suggests care free, unconcerned, selfishness, and anomie that result from patriarchy.

Conclusion

Amma Darko’s vision could be inferred from the collaboration, the agreement between MUTE
constituted of women and Sylv Po and his producer to unravel the circumstances surrounding the
death of Baby T, Fofo’s life, and the causes of the scourge of street children very common in
Ghana. Everyone involved is seen and respected as partner with others, sharing the same goal
and vision of discovering the cause and devising a means of ending streetism in Ghana.
Everyone deploys their strength for the success of the task. The success, speedy and seamless
achievement of their goal is a portrayal of the belief that the family and the larger society will be
a better and progressive one if women, individually and corporately can collaborate with men,
not as rivals, but as partners and pursue common goals. However, the novel still suggests that for
this to be possible, education of both sexes is essentially unavoidable.



Works Cited

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