Flyist or Feminist: The Remaining Spaces for Women's Struggle in Sefi Atta's Everything Good Will Come

Abstract

Gender issues remain some of the preoccupations of female writers in twenty-first century Nigerian prose fiction. Sefi Atta's Everything Good Will Come very clearly demonstrates the fact that literature, as a form of discourse, functions as an important tool for not only upholding and projecting the dominating perspective of patriarchal ideology, but also for countering them. This paper posits that Atta utilizes the platform of fiction to probe socio­ cultural practices that biologically categorize the male and the female in a hierarchical form. Atta goes all out to launch an assault against sexism, tearing down notions of hierarchy that privilege the male gender. Based on perceived injustices arising from gender differences, Atta pointedly transposes the realities of women into literature with a view towards amelioration and positive changes. The discussion will be explored from the framework of a "flyist-feminist" paradigm, a feminist theoretical viewpoint that is presented in the novel. Thus, the text's meaning is underpinned in the "flyist-feminist" paradigm, which claims voice as a potent weapon in defence of women, with a resolve to live and a refusal to be "swiped" at like a mere fly. The essay then concludes thatAtta's Everything Good Will Come envisions a society with lingering sexist issues remaining to be surmounted in the struggle against conditions that are limiting, constricting or inimical to women.