Kilosho, S.K.Chokah, M.Gikonyo, Florence2012-04-122012-04-122012-04-12http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/3861Department of Foreign Languages,206p.The PQ 3989.2 .G5I4 2011This study is based on one of the female writers of francophone Africa calixthe Beyala. It investigates how she has portrayed the African woman and girl in one of her novels, Asseze 1 'Africaine. It studies her role as an African female novelist in the representation of the African woman and girl in literature. In addition, it examines the portrait of the central character Asseze, to identify whether she has been depicted as a traditional or modem African girl. This work was guided by the semiotic theory, theory of literary description psychoanalysis and feminist theories. Our methodology and data collection was done by library research, our basis being the novel Asseze 1 'Africaine. We collected data on the nine female African characters in the text and analyzed it according to their physical and moral portraits. We concluded that Beyala portrays the African woman and girl in a positive and negative light and that she conforms to as well as subverts the stereotyped images of women outlined by Mary Ellmann in the feminist theory. We noted that the portraits of the female characters presented more of individuality than commonality, such that it would be erroneous to make generalizations about the image of the African woman and girl. The transformations in the portraits of the characters showed that the image of the African woman and girl is not static but dynamic. The main character Asseze is depicted as an African girl tom between tradition and modernity. We also concluded that Beyala compares the condition of the African woman and girl to that of Africa to such an extent that she makes the former an allegory of the latter.enAsseze L'fricaine --criticism and interpretationThesis