Social Power Dynamism Within the Familial Spaces of Meja Mwangi's The Last Plague and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

This study seeks to establish the dynamics of social power among literary characters in the familial spaces of the fictional societies depicted by Meja Mwangi in his novel, The Last Plague (E.A.E.P. 2000) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Purple Hibiscus (Fourth Estate, 2004).The study is justified by the fact that a study on the interchanges of social power among characters in the two texts has not been done. The study will be descriptive and analytical and will employ the qualitative research design, which will involve close reading of the two novels as well as other related books. The primary data collected will be subjectively analyzed to determine how and why social power possession and exercise changes from one character to another within family set ups. More data will also be collected through library reading on critical works on the two texts as well as scholarly commentary on social power and its dynamism in family relationships. The analysis on how and why different characters acquire and exercise social power over one another will constitute data that will be analyzed in a descriptive manner. It is hoped that the findings of this research will help the literary fraternity to understand how and why characters' social power possession keeps changing in the two novels. This research will be of usc to scholars of literature who have a slant towards East and West African novels. It will also be of assistance to lay people who are interested in reading the two novels. A recommendation for further studies on the hiatus that shall be left by this study will be made .