Masculinity: The Male in the Hands of Female Writers a Study of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones

Masculinity is a set of qualities, characteristics and roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to a man. This research investigated and analyzed how a Nigerian female novelist depicts masculinity in her selected novel. This is with a view to appraising the representations of different aspects of masculinity, particularly in terms of the sexist notions of power, sexuality, emotion and poverty. Feminism and Masculinism are used as the theoretical frameworks due to their relevance to the interpretation of the selected text. The Nigerian novel purposively selected is AkachiAdimora-Ezeigbo'sThe Last of the Strong Ones. The contours of manliness take on an intriguing stereotypical and sexist complexity in the selected novel, as they are replete with stereotypical sexist virtues and rigidly differentiated roles ascribed to a man, including assertiveness, strength, sexuality, authority, virility, possessiveness, protectiveness, and insensitivity. The forms of masculinity that recur in the novel include hegemonic, dependent, ambivalent, collapsed and liberated. Abazu is “collapsed”, while Iheme is “ambivalent”. The male characters have their individual masculine idiosyncrasies, and the female characters have their distinguishing own gender roles. The complexities of male roles therefore confirm the pluralistic and slippery nature of masculinity.