Anowa

Anowa (1970) by Ama Ata Aidoo is a play by Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo that was published in 1970, after Aidoo returned from Stanford University in California to teach at the University of Cape Coast. Anowa is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter who rejects suitors proposed by her parents Osam and Badua, and marries a stranger who ultimately is revealed as the Devil in disguise. The play is set in the 1870s on the Gold Coast, and tells the story of the heroine Anowa's failed marriage to the slave trader Kofi Ako. The play has a unique trait whereby a couple, an old man and an old woman, take on the role of the Chorus. They present themselves at crucial points in the play and give their own views on the events in the play. Anowa's attitude of being a modern independent woman angers Kofi Ako. He requests her to be like other "normal" women. Anowa lives in a hallucinated world, and the sorrow of not bearing a child depresses her. Her rich husband, now frustrated with his wife, asks her to leave him. Anowa argues with him and finds out that he had lost his ability to bear children and the fault accounting for being childless was in him and not in her. This disclosure of the truth drives Kofi Ako to shoot himself and Anowa drowns herself. Anowa represents the modern woman, who wishes to make her own decisions and live life as per her choice. An additional conflict is that, although a tribal woman, she has the traits of a city-bred. Her attitude leads to her destruction.

Quotes

• In any case, at last, they are not individuals. They become an excessive amount of like the Divine beings they decipher
  • Page 6
• A prophet with a bolted mouth is neither a prophet nor a man
  • Page 8
• I can’t be upbeat in the event that I am going to quit working
  • Page 34
• It is men who make men distraught
  • Page 64
• Harmony makes carelessness
  • Page 34
• I am going to assist him with accomplishing something with his life
  • Page 12
• A caring God incensed is a thousand times more insidious than a mean God obscure”
  • Page 24
• No man made a captive of his companion and came to a lot of himself
  • Page 26
• Individuals like her are not substance to have life modest. They generally need it less expensive”
  • Page 30
• One quits wearing a cap just when the head has tumbled off
  • Page 31
• But in the end, they are not people. They become too much like the Gods they interpret
  • Page 6
• I am going to help him do something with his life”
  • Page 12

External links

• Anowa
• free book
• supersummary